July 5, 1965

I spent all day yesterday at the annual Independence Day barbeque. It was actually fairly fun. The youth pastor brought his transistor radio with the church set of speakers. They even played a few decent songs.

            Other than the music, there was tons of food. There were lots of hot dogs, vanilla shakes, cokes in sweaty wax cups; very all American. I normally wouldn’t get all into something like that, but it’s only once a year after all. I mostly just played with the kids. Last year I was afraid that if I played with them, people would still look at me as a child, but now that I’m 15, and, well, I look like this, I know no one would think that. I think people would be more likely to think June was one of the munchkins. She’d be better off if she was still a child, then there would be an excuse for her outfits or the fact that she still lives at home. At 11 o’clock the fireworks started. I had arranged to meet this boy, Charlie out by the lake to watch the show. It was nice. He wrapped me in his jacket, which smelled like boy and grass. It wasn’t that cold, but it was still nice. We kissed underneath the colorful explosions.