Suburban Soliloquies #6

~NESHAMINY~

Neshaminy is a name of Native American origin - what only a few years ago I could comfortably write as "Indian" origin. This tribe of Lenapes made their home along the Neshaminy Creek. It is not clear if the tribe took their name from the place, or gave their name to the place. So Neshaminy might mean "the tribe of the double drinking place," or "the creek of the double drinking tribe," but I confess a personal affection for the name, as it is quenching to the ear and original in the world. I graduated Neshaminy High School on the ninth of June, 1969. Our football team was the Redskins.

Neshaminy was among several high schools built to serve this exploding community and the young building still seemed very modern to me during my incarceration. To serve the growing population of baby boomers, suburbia's high schools were constructed in the fashion of the community's rancher house, a sprawling series of long hallways wandering every which way. High schools in my community incorporate grades ten, eleven, and twelve, and I was sentenced to all three at Neshaminy. I was released with a senior class of more than 750 fellow graduates.

In the twelfth grade our school system was finally getting around to teaching us about sex. It came a bit late for many of us. I was not untypical in not being a virgin.

There was an afternoon I was walking along the hallway with my "steady," our schedules having temporarily brought us together between classes. The Junior Class Principal was coming from the opposite direction. He halted in mid-stride, stood upright, broadened his chest, stretched his neck, and in this authoritarian pose commanded, "Stop that immediately!" My love and I didn't know who he was addressing, but he seemed to be directing his instruction at us. We both turned to see if it might be someone behind us, but saw nothing punishable occurring there. We looked back and Mr. Junior Class Principal. He was furious and growled, "You know who I mean."

Of course he wouldn't know our names, we being seniors. Using a submissive voice that I hoped would diffuse his vehemence, I hazarded a guess; "Do you mean me?"

It had just the opposite effect. He expanded like a cartoon boiler about to blow. "You know very well I mean you. Don't be smart with me," he shouted. I found myself in a nightmare. Mr. Junior Class Principal was angry with me for doing something of which I was unconscious yet continuing to do. I had no choice but to ask him what was it that I was doing wrong. "That, that, THAT!" he cried and pointed an accusing finger at the offense he could not bring himself to name. My love and I followed his aim to some point between us finding nothing their but our clasped hands. As I studied our hands I began to wonder if it was the holding of hands that troubled him. How could it be our hands?, and then I realized the entire incident was a spoof, that Mr. Junior Class Principal was just joking with us. I began to laugh out loud, but when I looked up Mr. Junior Class Principal was not smiling and I choked on my laughter.

"You're serious," I said in astonishment.

"Do get wise with me, young man, you know very well I'm serious. There will be no hand holding in this school." Even then it took a moment to consciously separate our hands for fear had us clasping all the tighter.

Health class, a euphemism for the class that would teach us about sex, was split, boys and girls being sent to separate rooms, and we were taught by gym teachers. The subject of human reproduction was the last chapter of our book. To force us to behave, our teacher would threaten that if we didn't cover the earlier chapters, there wouldn't be time to undertake the last. I didn't think he wanted us to reach the last chapter. Any mention of sex would cause the teacher's crewcut head to blush, glowing like the electric range on a stove, and he would divert the topic to baseball. Making him blush became our sport.

We managed to crawl to that last chapter. Our Health Science book informed us that "sex is not only necessary, but dangerous." There was no mention of fellatio, cunnilingus, masturbation, abortion, condom, nor homosexuality. It wasn't much of an education. We saw a film of childbirth in which a blood-drenched baby is extruded from what appeared an open wound. Why would anyone be in a hurry to produce babies? Which is probably the exact sense our school wanted to instill. We also saw a film that displayed the horrors inflicted on one's appearance by venereal disease, should we ever have sex without matrimony.

Matrimony was also a subject of our Health class. Our teacher asked us, "How many here would marry someone of a different nationality?" I was among the few that raised their hands. He then offered us statistics for the number of mixed nationality marriages that fail. He next asked, "How many would marry outside of their religion." I think only four of us in a class of twenty or thirty raised our hands. We were then provided with the success rates of different mixed religion marriages. The final question came. "How many here would marry a different race?" I was the only one to raise a hand.

The reaction of the classroom was a choked silence of shock. The stunned teacher asked me why. I answered simply, "Because I would be in love with her?" - a rhetorical question. A commotion ensued among my classmates. When the class concluded and we emptied into the hall, my peers quickly sought their friends, pointing me out and whispering the news. That was 1969.

It is almost thirty years since graduating from that class and I have been true to my word. I have married twice. Both times to someone of different nationality and different religious background than myself, myself being a United States citizen brought up in the Jewish tradition. My first wife even qualifies as a different race - whatever that means.

She is Japanese and was brought up in the Shinto and Buddhist religions. Regardless of the contribution we made to statistics, those numbers will fail to reveal the successes and failures of that relationship. Even after it was concluded, we both acknowledged that there had been an irredeemable value to that marriage. Divorce, after five years, restored an excellent friendship in which the marriage had only interfered.

My second wife, my present wife, is a British citizen brought up in an eclectic Christian experience. She was a package deal, arriving with two wonderful children from her previous marriage to an African-American. My spouse was an unexpected surprize. High school never prepared me for this kind of happiness.