My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Six: Girls and I Part Four

 August 3, 2026

Chapter 6

Gentle reader,

I last wrote to you in February, 2026. Almost four YEARS after posting the previous chapter! I likened it to a lapsed Catholic returning to the Church and Confessing to the Priest. You can read that chapter here: 

People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why: My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Five: Girls and I Part Three

People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why: My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Four Girls and I Part Two

People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why: My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Three Girls and I Part One

People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why: My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Two 

People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why: My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter One

Those are all the previous chapters in case this is the first time that you have seen this blog. Feel free to click on each one, read them, if you wish and come back here.

That's the five of us Robb kids in the early 1970's in the South side of Denver, Colorado. Top, left to right: Yours Truly, Marcia (older than I) middle row: Judy, the "middle child" and Jim. In front: Rebecca, then called Becky. We are outside our ranch style house in Southside Denver.

Dad, formerly known as, The Reverend Doctor Thomas B. Robb, he's been dead since 2011, as you can tell by his titles, he was a Pastor, more specifically, a Presbyterian Minister. Which makes the five of us "P K's" Preacher's Kids. A unique breed of children who often are far from Saints or setting a positive example. 

Literally the day after I graduated from Denver's South High School in June, 1974, the family all piled into the our blue 1973 AMC Matador station wagon and it was "Wagon Ho!" but Eastward, not towards the West. 

It looked like this one, which is a 1972, except ours had a nice medium blue metallic paint. I left my faithful 1964 Chevrolet Impala two-door hardtop stored outside the Mobil Station with a promise from the boss to start the engine and drive it every couple of weeks.

It looked very much like this one. I paid $300 for it in September, 1973 in Denver, CO. Ah, Freedom! There is no joy like driving your very first car!

Dad had made arrangements for me to take a job at a local Chevrolet Dealership in Richmond as their Lube Technician. The pay was $100 a week and I worked 50 hours for that fortune, which was Minimum Wage at the time. I rode my trusty 3-speed JCPenney bicycle to and from work since my car was 1,500 miles away.

You met Susan in the last chapter. The only known photo of my her. I missed her so much! We wrote to each other (real paper letters sent through the USPS) faithfully and occasionally my parents let me make a brief long-distance phone call to her. She came to visit during her Spring Break and it was wonderful to see her! Finally, in June of 1975, I quit my job at the Chevy dealership and boarded an airplane at Richmond International Airport to fly back home to Denver. All I had was my clothes and pillow and all the money I had saved up. The Virginia Air National Guard had Fighter jets back from Vietnam. One was taking off ahead of us. I watched it zoom off and then our airplane lumbered down the runway. "This isn't a jet!" I thought.

In case you don't know what this is, it is called a Post Card. Look it up if you want to learn more about them. Before there was anything digital, people would buy them when on vacation and send them to friends and relatives by mail.

This is the side one wrote on, telling all the folks back home about this stop/place on your vacation trip. They were very common back then. No Internet, no digital anything.

I'm almost 70 and just managed to pull the name of Denver's airport out of my memory with no effort whatsoever! I landed at Stapleton International Airport far outside of Denver and Susan's family must have picked me up. I have NO memory of getting back to the City, to my car or where I lived those first few weeks back in Denver, all those years ago.

I got my old job back at the Mobil Station on Colorado Boulevard although I think my hair was a bit shorter than in this picture. True to his word, the boss did take care of my car and it started right up! 

A little while later, the boss hired someone new, a real hippie looking guy with dark shades. He never said his name and I never gave him mine. One evening he came in after dark and had his regular glasses on. "You look familiar to me." I said. He replied, "I should, we were best friends in 9th grade." "Kerry?" I asked. "I thought you recognized me, so I didn't say anything." "You look NOTHING like you did four years ago!"

That's Kerry in seventh grade, lower left. Clean cut and earnest looking then.  Well, him being hired was a stroke of luck for me, or what I now call a God Moment. We got a nice two bedroom apartment together. He had a beautiful girlfriend who wouldn't have given me the time of day. But when he introduced me to her as his old friend, she was really nice to me. By then I had enough money by buy a twin size mattress and steel bed frame. No other furniture, though! Not even a table or lamp. Ah, how simple life was back then. Things would change soon...

One day, the boss of that Mobil Station asked me if I could stay to closing which was 9:00PM, then lock up and set the alarm. I agreed. Well, I set the alarm like he showed me, but I what I didn't know was that I forgot to lock the door! When I came into work the next afternoon, the boss told me what I forgotten to do. "So, I have to let you go." he said. "Go?" "I'm firing you. We could have been robbed." Not to be deterred, I got a job next door at a tire store. 

This wasn't it. This too is a Post Card of a tire store in Ohio in 1970.

Kerry, his girlfriend and I all got along well, I was making better money at the tire store. I sold my '64 Impala and bought a '67 Impala SS convertible. It was only $300, the same price I had paid for my first car in 1973.  

It looked exactly like this one. The same size engine, 327 cubic inches or 5.3 liters, as the engine I had put into my '64 Impala to replace the oil-burning 283 it came with. It too had Chevrolet's Powerglide 2-speed automatic transmission that my '64 came with. I would have preferred a four-speed manual transmission. But, they were rare.

You might be thinking, (well I would be thinking) anyway, "Wait a minute, where did you get another engine and what was wrong with the first one?" 

A Chevy 327 V8 engine nearly identical to the one I had swapped into my '64 Impala.

That '64 Impala came with the smallest V8 engine Chevrolet made then, a 283 cubic inch or 4.6 liter unit. It burned oil so badly that I just had to replace it. A friend of mine had a beater* 1964 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu Super Sport convertible (above the engine picture) which he sold to me for $250. 

*A car which is not in very good condition.

The car's body was three different colors, the soft top's back window was missing. The brake lights didn't work and the clutch slipped. I'm sure it had more wrong with it than those few things. It had a 4-speed manual transmission, which was awesome! I should have fixed that car up and then sold my Impala, but, I was young and had no idea how much money that car would be worth someday.

This was the color of the interior. Anyway, we took the smoker 283 V8 engine out of my '64 Impala, then pulled the good running 327 V8 out of the '64 Malibu and sold the rest of the car. The Impala ran so much better and was way quicker too. Anyway, I sold the '64 Impala to a man who said, "Wow, buying a car from a mechanic! I'm so lucky!" Or so he thought. 

Some months later, I noticed what looked like my old '64 parked behind an apartment building. I recognized it by the wheels I had put on it.

I attempted to made a replica of my first car with a 1/24th scale diecast model. It was a similar color to mine. Those wheels are actually for a Cub Scout Pinewood Derby car. They were the closest I could find to the mag wheels I had put on the '64 Impala.

I told Tom, my less-than-law-abiding-friend, about seeing it. He pulled out a large key ring with what looked like fifty car keys on it. "Let's go take a look at it tonight."

So, I picked him up that evening, and we drove to where the car was. He unlocked the door with one of his keys, started the engine up, put the transmission in gear and said, "Transmission's slipping. Let's go get something to eat." I won't tell you what happened later, but Tom "acquired" that old Impala, took what was once his 327 V8 engine out of it and had the rest of the car towed to a scrap yard.

That Summer, I was reclining on a Chaise Lounge by the apartment complex's pool reading a book. It was an indoor/outdoor pool and was fully fenced outside so that no one could see the pool or the people using it. I'd never seen one of those pools before. Two girls were swimming and giggling in the pool. I heard one say, "Oops." I looked over my book and her bikini top had "fallen off" and there were her perky little boobs! Both girls were grinning and looking at me. I was still somewhat shy then and covered my eyes with embarrassment with my book rather than join them in the pool. Idiot! Or, maybe not. They did not teach teens about STDs* back then. *Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Months later, it was then 1975 by then and three things had happened, I don't remember the order: 1, Susan broke up with me. 2, Kerry moved out to live with his girlfriend instead of me. And, 3, I got fired from the tire store. 

I knew that my family was driving the 1500 miles back to Denver because my older sister, Marcia was getting married, she had stayed in Denver when the rest of us moved to Richmond, VA. 

I went to the rental office, told the young lady my tale of woe, she took pity on me and let me stay in the apartment until they arrived in June, rent free. I think she liked me, but was too I was too thick headed to notice that.

This was Linda, thanks to social media, we are friends again, fifty years after last seeing each other. I first spied her at the Presbyterian Church picnic in Richmond. She was kneeling in the grass next to the lawn chair my dad was sitting in, talking to him. I was mesmerized. I asked my brother, "Who's that talking to Dad?" He didn't know. I mentioned her to my parents and the too did not realize who I was talking about. They set me up with another girl they thought I was talking about. She was a knockout, but I was too shy to try and get to know her. Then, they set me up with another girl her name was Emily. I did go out with her. She was 4'11" tall. I was 6'3". Her 4'10" sister also wanted to go out with me. I took her out too. Then their not-height-challenged older sister said that she too wanted to go out with me. "Sorry, two sisters is my limit." She was cute, though.

Well, to my surprise, my family, in my absence, had learned to Folk Dance. The Seminary where Dad taught, every Friday night, had Folk Dance classes. For Free. They said, "Come on, Scott, join us. It's lots of fun!" 

I was hesitant. I didn't go to any dances during high school. I didn't know how to dance. Oh, by the way, that's me above, on the right. We were Exhibition Clog Dancing in Willow Lawn Mall in Richmond. So, I had gone to the Folk Dances, and I learned a number of dances (even the Hustle) and got talked into joining the Exhibition Clog Dancing Group. We went around to places in the City dancing. I had a pair of black patent leather Capezio tap shoes. The dance teacher nailed staccato taps to them. They make more noise than one-piece taps do. 

Mom shot these pictures inside the mall. That blonde boy next to me, above, is Adam S. I was friends with his whole family. In fact, his big brother, Philip, is who got me into building a stereo system that I could be proud of. See: The Robb Collections.

And, lastly, that is yours truly dancing with Linda. By then we were dating and dancing by then. And more... Our favorite dance was the Polka. It's kind of like Waltzing, but quicker and much more fun. Linda and I would fly around the room dancing the Polka. 

Linda turned out to be far more sophisticated than I was. And worldly too. Over time, I think she grew tired of me. One day, she told me she wanted to break up. I later learned that she had taken up with Ed. I don't blame her, Ed was definitely more her speed and far more interesting then I was at the time. The one positive from that breakup was Jerri. Ed's former girlfriend. She was my "older woman" 25 to my 20. We didn't last, but while we dated, she bought me clothes I never would have bought. She liked showing me off. Ah, the memories...

These were my friends back then, in Richmond. That's Philip S. Adam's big brother, on the far right. He and the rest of the brothers liked to buy and fix up foreign cars in their parents back yard. Something I imagine did not please the neighbors. They were great people. Joe K. is in the middle, his legs are crossed, between his older brother on his left and his sister, Maria, on his right. "Bunch a dang hippies!" some likely said when seeing us together. But, they were all good people and I have many fond memories to this day of those halcyon days of innocence lost.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this continuing saga. Feel free to comment below or on Facebook.

Scott Robb

August 3, 2026  

My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Five: Girls and I Part Three

February 13, 2026

Gentle reader, 

I can't help but think of a member of a Catholic church in confessional when writing: It's been four years since I last wrote a chapter.

If you are new to this blog/memoir, here are links to the previous chapters: 

People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why: My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Four Girls and I Part Two

People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why: My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Three Girls and I Part One

People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why: My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Two 

People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why: My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter One

This is a picture of my first "real" girlfriend and I. I was a Senior, she was a Sophomore. Her name is Susan. She is one of two sister's of my friend, Steven. She was in seventh grade when I was in ninth grade at the junior high school in Denver. She is NOT the seventh grade girl who I made the mistake of smiling at during study hall!

This is (likely) a shot from a drone of South High School in Denver, Colorado. This is the rear side of the school. The main entrance is on the other side, facing the large parking lot. As you can see, it is old and enormous! I could not find one of my classrooms, turns out, there was a classroom on both sides of the stairs IN the stairwells! Quite a massive change from junior high!

During the summer break between my triumphant year in ninth grade at Merrill Junior High, I do not recall hanging out with any of my school friends. Since there was so many of us kids in our family, we tended to play with each other, growing up. Unlike most kids, I was actually excited to start tenth grade at South. Weird, I know. 

Despite all the well-wishes and kind words from (mostly) girls in my junior high school yearbook, everyone seemed to have changed in those three intervening months. I could not understand why people who seemed to really like me last year suddenly did not want anything to do with me!

As a result, I pulled back into my shyness shell and vowed to just make the best of each school day. 

Then this happened: I was walking up to the school's front entrance, a week of so after the first day, and a girl walked right up to me on the lawn out front of the school. She asked if I was a sophomore. I replied in the affirmative. She introduced herself as a senior(!) and said that seniors are supposed to make friends with new sophomores to help ease them into senior high school life. She met me every morning, as promised. I wish I could recall her name.

I have pondered that encounter many times since then. Was she pulling my leg? Was she really a senior? Was their truly a "program" or did she just decide to do that? I will never know the answers.

That may look like a girl, above, but that was me. Photo by my little brother, Jim. Somehow, Dad knew the family of former Governor Sweet of Colorado. That person let us stay in their "cabin" in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It was actually a chalet. It was awesome. Everyone was going to ride horses. Not, I! No way in Hell! (I was traumatized by a horse when I was little.) Anyway, what do I see, but Dad, who ALWAYS wore slacks, wearing blue jeans! And cowboy boots and he was on a horse! Who was that man and what did he do with Dad? 

Anyway, that photo was shot as Jim and I were hiking up a pinnacle some distance from the chalet. I seem to recall the peak, which we reached, was at  11,000 feet. That number could be way too high, however.

Okay, so I was back to being the shy boy in all the classes. However, I already had my life planned out: As a small boy, I had decided what I wanted to do when I grew up: Be an auto mechanic. 

Denver had a Technical School downtown. It was called: Emily Griffith Opportunity School. Juniors and Seniors from all the high schools rode school buses to and from the technical school every afternoon of those two years. That was the ONLY times I rode school buses! Seriously! Every school we attended, we attended in Kansas, California and Colorado, we either walked, rode our bikes or, once I was a Senior in high school, I drove my car. 

Students were bussed to the technical school from high schools all over Denver. Every break, we hung out in the hallways. There was a really cute redhead, someone told me she might have been from West, who kept looking at me! I was too damned SHY to get off my butt and go talk to her! She was not the first "little red haired girl" who caught my eye which I did NOT go up and talk to!

South High was, I kid you not, two and a half miles from our house. Denver is mostly flat, we lived in the southern suburbs, but there were hills both ways! The only other kids who rode busses to and from school were the kids that lived in the poorer parts of the city, I made friends with some of them. I rode home with one friend, (I was the only white kid on the bus) and we walked to his house and played and hung out. Then, I caught a city bus back south to our neighborhood. One thing I remember was the smell of their neighborhood. "What IS that smell?" I asked him. "What smell?" "You don't smell that?" "Oh, that smell! That's the Purina factory. They make dog food there."

We moved to Denver from San Anselmo, California in the summer of 1971. Dad had earned his Doctorate of Theology at San Francisco Theological seminary. It was not in San Francisco, but across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County, in San Anselmo on Seminary Hill. He was offered a teaching post in Denver. It was at Illif School of Theology in Denver. The campus was adjacent to Denver University which was between where we lived and South High. 

That us, in Kansas, likely preparing to move back the San Anselmo so that Dad could teach and take classes at that seminary. I had just finished third grade, I think. I showed you pictures of the houses we lived in back then, in previous chapters, in Marin County. I am on the left, Becky, the youngest is hanging from my left shoulder and Marcia's right shoulder. She is the oldest of us. In front, Judy, the "middle child" then, Jim, the forth child, Mom and Dad. Jim now towers over me. 

Nancy, my wife and the love of my life, surprised me with a trip to California in 2010. I had not been back since 1971! That's Marin County on the other side of the bridge, with Mount Tamalpais being the taller ones. It has two peaks.

That's my darling, Nancy, posing in front of an enormous Coast Redwood tree. They are said to be the longest lived trees in the United States.  

Anyway, this chapter is supposed to be about GIRLS. Well, Susan was it, as far as in Denver. I bought my first car, a 1964 Chevrolet Impala two-door hardtop, like the one below, in September of my senior year.

There I was in my senior year, I had enough credits to graduate early, but still needed to attend South during the morning of my second and final, semester year. They told me, just pick a class! So, I picked sophomore history. I love history. 

I remember that I was sitting towards the front of the class. I tended to look around, and a cute girl with long, dark hair, kept looking at me from the far side of the room. Remember, I have never kissed a girl! I did not go to any dances, because I did not know how to dance. I had NO girlfriends since 9th grade. It was time to make my move.

My Impala was not a Super Sport model, which came with "bucket" seats and had a console and floor-mounted gear shifter in between the two seats. It had this type of seat called a "bench" seat. Mine had a brown interior. Also, note the gear lever attached to the steering column. Back then, American cars tended to have six and eight cylinder engines which made a lot of torque. Torque is a twisting force. Torque is what gets the car moving and up to speed. Horsepower is what helps cars to travel fast.

Why and I telling you all this? Since the seats went from one side of the car to the other, it could hold six adults, three in each seat. Which made it possible to have one's girlfriend seated RIGHT next to you. 

Since I was taking a sophomore class, I ate lunch with the tenth graders. Which Susan was one of. I got up the nerve to talk to her and we started eating lunch together. Then, I talked her into letting me drive her home from school. 

Take a close look at the map below. All of those grey areas are in fact streets. LOTS of streets. Denver has grown a LOT since 1975.

Denver was first laid out in the 1800's following Cherry Creek which ran from northwest to southeast. Thus, Downtown streets are angled compared to the rest of the city which grew up around downtown and are the traditional North/South, East/West layout of most metropolis's in the world. 

Well, she gave me her address, remember everyone walked or rode their bikes to and from school. So, she knew the way home. We drove up to her house, she took me inside, and who did I see, but my friend, Steven! He sees me and we each said the other's name in unison and then, "What are you doing here?" We laughed and he said, "What are you doing here with my little sister?"

Well, it turns out that their father was also a preacher! Small world. He was Episcopal as I remember. As time went by, both families got together. I think Mom and Dad were happy that I finally had a girl friend. She had an older brother David(?) He and Steven had LONG hair. They also had a younger sister called Mimi. She and my baby sister, Becky, became friends.

Back then, the federal minimum wage was $1.65 an hour. My first job was at a Mobil gas station on Colorado Boulevard. Regular gas was 33.9¢ a gallon. Yes, one could buy almost three gallons of gas for $1.00! My first paycheck after two-weeks full time was for just over one hundred dollars. I thought I was rich!

Typical scene across the United States in 1973: People waiting in long lines hoping to get some gasoline.

Then, the Arab Oil Embargo happened! Don't know what that was? Look it up. Suddenly, there was very little gasoline and other petroleum products available to purchase! When stations did have gas, they had to ration it! Such as: Cars with even number license plates could buy ten gallons on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Cars with odd number license plates buy ten gallons on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, for example. It was CHAOS! 

That's me at seventeen. When I started my Senior year at South High, I was five feet, six inches tall and weighed one hundred and fifty five pounds. Nine months later, I was Six feet three inches tall and still weighed one hundred and fifty five pounds! Yes, I grew one inch a month! 

I don't have any other photos of Susan. We dated all that semester and eventually, we did it! Yes, I used "protection". The only woman I impregnated was my first wife. Sadly, right after I graduated, OFF to Richmond, Virginia we went! 

My boss was of Polish descent, named: Ermer Bocim, and referred to himself as a "Pollock". He specialized in foreign cars. So, I learned to work on them as well as domestic (American) cars and trucks. I made arrangements with him to store my car at the station because I was coming back to Denver! 

And, that, dear reader, is where I will leave off. I promise it will not be YEARS before I continue the story.

Feel free to leave a comment below, or on Facebook.

Scott Robb

February 13, 2026

My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Four Girls and I Part Two

 July 25, 2022

Gentle reader,

If you are new to this blog/memoir, here are links to the previous chapters:

People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why: My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Three Girls and I Part One

People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why: My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Two

People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why: My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter One

I left off in December of 2020 having told you about some of the girls I liked in elementary school and our pending move from San Anselmo, CA to Denver, CO.

While we were enjoying life in the "big house" on Bolinas Avenue, our parents SHOCKED us by showing up NOT in a newer model VW bus, but in a blue 1971 AMC Matador station wagon! The car shown is a 1973 coupe, but they did not change much, and that's the color of it.

My brother Jim had the use of a film movie camera during high school and made a bunch of silly films. Here is one of the most popular videos which shows the car being used "for educational purposes": Driving and You - A driver's ed movie from the late 1970's - YouTube

We arrived in Denver in July, 1971 having enjoyed air conditioned car comfort and a vehicle which had ample power to carry seven people  across multiple mountain ranges with relative ease for the first time in our lives.

In California, at least back then, public schools were divided as such: Elementary was kindergarten to grade eight with a graduation. Then high school, grades nine through twelve. And another graduation.

In Colorado, again, back then, it ran kindergarten to grade six, then Junior High, grades seven through nine. With a "continuation" ceremony. Senior High school ran grades ten, eleven and twelve. Finishing with a graduation. 

As stated at the end of the previous chapter, I was determined to change my image. And BOY, did I! I made friends with the jocks and cheerleaders stepping way outside of my comfort zone in doing so.

I'm on the left squinting in the sun, older sister Marcia in the middle, middle sister Judy wearing the red hat, baby sister Becky in front and brother Jim striking a pose.

We are in front of our Denver house which had an addition added some time prior to our moving in. It can be seen behind me. They added a carport and family room as well as large bedroom with it's own bathroom. That was Mom and Dad's end of the house. Oddly, they left the kitchen window and door in place. So, one could look at what was going on there while doing dishes.

So, back to girls and me. To my surprise, girls were drawn to me (they probably were in California, but I was clueless to it then) and one girl, K. was the head cheerleader. She became my girlfriend. We hung out at school and walked with our arms around each other, but frankly, I had NO idea how to kiss, so did not try. 

A "Karen" signed my yearbook, upper left. K. finally broke up with me, saying, "I do this with a lot of guys." I was not heartbroken, because there were other girls lining up. I could not believe it! Of course by then, hormones were starting to affect us all. Joyce, who signed lower left, was in the eighth grade. Word got out that "Joyce" was looking for me. Eventually she found me. Like T. in California at Ross school, she was a redhead with freckles, quite pretty and had a "reputation". I at least walked her home from school, but, again had no idea how to enjoy having a girlfriend. Man, did the word spread that she and I were "an item". Something that I did not discourage.

There was a family up the street which we became friends with. An older sister and younger brother. Their dad fixed up old cars which really got me excited! His daughter was in eighth grade to my being in ninth. She too took an interest in me, trying to get me to pay attention to her instead of her little brother, who was my buddy. We even "wrestled" one time and I ended up on top of her my legs straddling her. I looked down at her and she had a "funny" look on her face. "Uh, oh," I thought, "She wants me to kiss her, what do I do!?!" I got off of her and gave her my hand to help her up. Idiot!

Looking through the yearbook, the vast majority of the notes were from girls, everyone was very pretty too. And three of them were named Karen! I feel bad for all Karens, what with their name becoming a meme. Interestingly, they call the ninth graders "freshmen" in the yearbook. 

I went to study hall one afternoon and there was a girl across from me. She was OK looking but by her size I guessed (correctly) that she was a seventh grader. Nonetheless, I smiled at her. Not a leering one, just an acknowledgement of her existence and presence at the table. 

Boy, was THAT a mistake! People started coming to me asking who, Xxxxx was. "Who?" Some girl is writing your name all over the school. WTH? Yes, it was HER. It seems that my smile made her "fall in love with me"! 

I have looked through the yearbook at every girl's picture, but I can't remember what she looked like nor her name. Once the yearbooks came out, she and her friends pestered me to sign her yearbook. I refused over and over, "But she loves you!" "She does not, she doesn't even know me!" On the last day of school, a passel consisting  of Xxxxx and her friends were chasing me down the hallways. The gate to where the bike racks were was locked, so I climbed the chain link fence and jumped down, desperate to get away! While the honorable thing to do was at least put my name in her yearbook, but what did I know of honor then?

The funny thing is, there WAS a seventh grade girl, whom I did not know or even notice that "freshman" year, but in my senior year at South High, I sure did.

But, that story will pick up within the next chapter. I promise not to take so long before writing it.

Feel free to comment below or on Facebook. Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I write to other blogs: Pictures of Nancy. The Love of My Life. and: The Robb Collections . The former, because I include relationship advice in addition to photos of my gorgeous wife in the articles is really picking up in readership. The latter has over 300,000 readers. And to my surprise has been linked (unbeknown to me until now) to other websites and even Pinterest. 

Scott Robb

July 25, 2022

My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Three Girls and I Part One

December 10, 2020 

#3

Gentle reader,

If you are new to this blog/memoir, here is a link to the previous chapter:

People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why: My Mother Has Been After Me To Write My Memoirs Chapter Two

I have not written since April, as everyone knows, Covid-19 has run rampant across out planet sickening and killing many. My younger daughter has it now, symptoms are not too bad. But I suspect she, like so many young adults just could not resist getting together. And, perhaps that is how she was exposed to it.

I left off raving about California. It really IS a beautiful piece of the United States which is why it has the highest population and continues to grow.

As the title is appended with: Girls, that is what I will tell you about. Remember, I'm hoping for your insight or counsel.

In the second small town in which we lived in rural Kansas, the family next door had a daughter my age. I'll call her T. 

We played together and at some point, we were sitting at their picnic table in their backyard. I said to T, something like, "I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours."

I was in the process of showing mine and her mother must have seen that because she came charging out of the house yelling and banished me from playing with T. At least for a while.

Here's a weird and true thing that happened a couple of years ago: I got home from work and there was a message on our telephone answering machine. Yes, we still have and use a landline. 

It was T! I'm thinking how the heck did she track me down and why? 

Well, she had remembered Dad's name, since she was still a member of the church denomination Dad had preached in. She'd read that he had died and where and was able to get his home phone number via the Internet. She called his widow (who never wanted us to call her a "stepmother") explained who she is and asked if he was the same man. She convinced B her to give our home phone number to her and she called.

So, I called her back and we talked for a while. She had remained in that same small Kansas town, gotten married and had a son who as a teen became addicted to methamphetamine, AKA: Meth. It is rampant throughout the Midwest, she told me, because there just isn't much to do in small rural towns.

Not only that, but her husband had dementia, so their marriage was in name only and she was miserable. 

Something she told me at the beginning of our phone call was that she "had been looking for you for fifty years". Why? Without coming out and saying it, she felt that we were "destined to be together". I think that she hoped that I, upon hearing how unhappy she was, I would abandon my life here, mount my mighty steed and ride to her rescue. I did not.

That, to me is a unique example of the effect I apparently have on females. We were seven! I remembered who she was once she reminded be, but had not thought of her at all in those fifty years. In fact, I had forgotten her name too.

My third grade photo. The ENTIRE third grade in that school in California. I'm the only boy wearing glasses. If you click on or tap the photo, it will open up much larger. As you can see there are a number of very cute girls.

You will also note there are no black children. I do not remember any in Kansas, but I do remember that the only black people I saw in that town were obviously rich peoples servants.

Despite what T thought, I had no real interest in girls until S walked into that classroom on the first day of school. S is the first girl in the middle row next to the teacher.

She was wearing that dress, in fact, light blue gingham. I took one look at her and, well did not fall in love, but I was definitely attracted to her. Since I attended from third to eighth grade, it was essentially the same kids every year. I was attracted to a number of those girls over those six years.

As I mentioned in chapter one, this was a small but VERY wealthy town in Marin County, California. Because we lived on that side of the road which was the border, we attended that school. I do not know, but suspect we were one of the few families who were not wealthy. 

And I'm pretty sure many of them felt that we were not of the same "class" as they were. Not that they shunned me, but those who did become friends (all boys, of course) and did come over to our tiny house, which was student housing for the Seminary Dad had attended and earned two degrees from, they put two and two together.

It did not help that I was shy, uncoordinated and terrible at any kind of sports. I was that school's Charlie Brown. At least Charlie Brown could pitch a baseball.

After Dad received his Doctoral Degree, the Seminary hired him to teach. With that job, we moved across the street to this house, which came with the position. Living there meant we now lived in the neighboring town. However, our parents were able to convince the principal to let the five of us continue at the school. I was to graduate at the end of that year. My older sister had done so two years prior. 

The room behind those three windows became my brother's and mine. It wasn't meant to be a bedroom, but was a sun room. It had a three doors. The one we used to come and go was opposite the windows. The other two were on each end of the room. One connected to our parents bedroom, the other to my younger sisters bedroom.

The house has redwood siding roof shingles. The garage, fencing and even garage door were made of redwood. Main rooms in the house were paneled in redwood.

In front of the house were these two Redwood trees. Significantly larger than when we left in 1971.

They are Coast Redwood trees which are part of the Sequoia species. Much of the West Coast has huge Redwoods along the mountains pushed up millions of years ago. Some are THOUSANDS of years old.

Giant Sequoia also grow there, and no where else in the US and between the two species are the tallest and thickest trees in the US.  

I bought a Giant Sequoia tree which was a skinny thing about three feet tall and planted in our backyard here in Virginia. That's it on the left. This is a panorama shot I made of the dry creek my wife and I made to prevent backyard flooding when it rains a lot. Anyway, it's now almost forty feet tall and if left to grow MIGHT become the tallest tree on the East coast. We'll be long gone by then, of course.

That house was to me, perfect. The front door opened onto a hallway which went straight back to the kitchen. A hallway to the right led to french doors which opened to the living room. Another set of french doors on the left opened into the family room. Opposite the front door and leading up to the right was a central stairway. It was surrounded by wooden railings upstairs with the four bedrooms, and bathrooms arrayed around it.

Okay, you may be thinking at this point, "What about girls? All you wrote about is T and S." 

Well the subtitle is Girls and I Part One. Okay, I'll tell you more. Marin County if gorgeous as a lot of California is. Mt. Tamalpais is tall enough to prevent fog from getting to us. So, it is usually warmer than San Francisco is. The weather is perfect year round. 

Most of the families we were friends with were also associated with the church, seminary or both. Most of them also had a number of kids and we had lots of adventures. Truly a magical time and place to grow up.

But aside from the girls at school I liked, there were no girls that I was interested in those families.

One family had a dog they named, Dammit. They lived down the street and from time to time their little girl could be heard yelling, "Dammit! Where are you Dammit?" Think about it, it is a funny name for a pet, and hearing this otherwise cute as a button little girl yelling, "Dammit!" was funny.

Next chapter will cover the move East to Colorado. Where I began ninth grade determined to change my image. And the girls really took notice. Did I take advantage of that? You'll have to wait and see.
 
Thanks for taking your time to read this humble blog/memoir. I will continue to write and hope some will read it and comment (below) on it.

Scott

December 10, 2020

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