"Lay lady, lay -
lay across my big, brass bed."
The forbidden song played on the radio
waves in the year of our lost innocence.
It was the summer of 1969.
My mother was shocked that her young daughters
were exposed to the "sexually explicit" lyrics of the
Bob Dylan song on the radio station we tuned into.
She took our radio away from us and ordered us
to never listen to that singer, or that song, again.
We heard her loudly muttering under her breath
complaints against the FCC and "rock and roll."
Little did she know that her darling, doting brother,
our Uncle Bruce, was molesting his young niece -
my 12-year-old sister. But that's another story.
While Lay Lady, Lay played unrestricted on other radios
in other homes and later, in our school cafeteria, we girls
were secretly smoking our mom's Pall Mall cigarettes and
sneaking out of our bedroom windows to meet the boys.
One summer night, my sister hid a giant stuffed animal
underneath her sheets to make it appear that she was
innocently sleeping in her bed (she was brave back then).
Only she and I knew she was meeting a bunch of kids (known as
"punks" and "thugs" in those days) down on a dark street corner.
Proceeding to their hidden destination, she had no idea that they
planned to "gang-bang" their innocent prey under the moon light.
She thought they were only going to the drive-in and drink rum.
My younger sister befriended a boy who was known by some white
folk as "Cornbread" just because his skin was black. My sister and he
would walk home from school together, but the other guys in this
tiny Texas town became enraged to see what they called a "nigger"
walking down the sidewalk with a "white girl". In 1969, the boys in
town formed a lynch mob of sorts, and hung "Cornbread" from a tree.
Another sister of mine, who would be just beginning the ninth grade
in high school later that fall, was being stalked and sexually harassed
constantly by a man from the old Texas Army National Guard Armory
down the road from our house. She thought she was tough because
she wore boots, but that wasn't enough to stop the pervs and perps.
Before these encounters, she and another sister (not me) went on a
dune-buggy ride out in the sand hills near a far-away, isolated river;
with my mother's then-boyfriend, a doctor, and one of his colleagues.
The girls were allegedly bound and raped in a deserted cabin. At least,
that was the "repressed" material their psychotherapist extracted from
their "unconscious memories" that were never reported to authorities.
Of my mother's six children, her very youngest was molested by the
so-called preacher. I can't believe my baby sister still goes to church.
While in my thirteenth (and last) year of innocence, I secretly began an
ill-fated, forbidden liaison with a mechanic from the local Ford dealership,
then a 20-year-old who came to our house regularly to ride our horses,
and later that year, help me skip school. The rest of my story with Bobby
is, at best, a forgotten history - sorry, Ms. Joplin (more on that later).
ART- that which Aristotle defined as an imitation of life - failed in its bid to imitate
the sad reality of our lives. Bob Dylan's song Lay Lady, Lay didn't even come close.
Sorry, Mom. I know you tried to keep our youthful innocence intact. Really, I do.
I'm sorry we and the wicked "good ol' boys" in that backward town let you down.
I am especially sorry for "Cornbread" and his family. Imagine their horror.
Why did we ever move from Michigan to Texas??
Will someone turn the radio back on, please?!!?
Honorable mention
Adding your comment:
And Congratulations on the GOLD!!! 
)
... Looking forward to reading it 
