The year is 1968. I’m late for a date, hurrying down a long line of people waiting outside the civic center. This is the teenage virgin ice princess Georgia, searching all these faces for the one belonging to my escort. He’s older than I am, a college boy who holds out the promise of initiation into mysterious secrets of adulthood.
The people in the crowd are between 16 and 25 years old. They wear broadly flared jeans with brilliantly colored patches, woven headbands holding back their long hair, peasant dresses, beaded necklaces, feather earrings and bells. I wear a canary yellow mini dress, high-heeled sandals, pink toe nails, and giant gold hoop earrings bobbing out from my long hair.
As I scan the faces, seeking the familiar eyes and smile of my young man, I’m met with glances of unsettling hunger. Although I don’t fully understand the desire in the eyes of these men, I read it as one of the mysterious secrets of adulthood.