Being a Kid

"How long does adolescence last? A while..."

Thomas W. Phelan, Ph.D.

Nancy was the first of my many cousins to become engaged, though my cousin Johnny and I, pictured above, were less than ecstatic at the news.

We loved Nancy, but being twelve and thirteen, neither of us had any interest in weddings, and we didn’t like the idea of having to wear our department-store suits and ties and going to church twice in one weekend. “What do they even do at a wedding?”

The wedding was interesting to watch, to a point. Lots of cousins in attendance was a plus. I have loads of cousins and uncles named John, so don’t get confused here!

Nancy’s brother, also named John, was a few years older than Johnny and me. When I was about seven, visiting Nancy’s home with my family for a dinner, John told me he had surgery to remove the roof of his mouth. He had to wear a special device, called a retainer, so that his brains wouldn’t fall out.

I had never heard of a retainer, so I fully believed his story, especially when he mentioned that, if he took out the retainer and leaned his head back, you could see his brain.

“I want to see!” He refused, though he kept bringing it up throughout the evening. It didn’t occur to me to fact-check his story with my parents, so I spent our visit in earnest wonderment.

Back to the wedding, or rather, onto the reception, which Johnny (rather than John) and I assumed would also be boring. Loafing around in our suits, having to behave and stand up straight, along with all our adult relatives present in a hotel banquet room, was not our idea of a great time.

We liked the hors d’oeuvres, and they had an open bar, which did us no good at all, since there was no way anyone with (or without) a brain would think for a moment that we were twenty-one.

But then, we found a loophole, which changed the entire trajectory of the night, and we were filled with a celestial joie de vivre.

You see, the bar would serve us, over and over again, if we said just two magic words: “Shirley Temple.” And like a couple of sailors on a binge, we said those words, over and over again, as the evening flew by.

We thought we must have looked at least a little bit older, as we stood there sipping our STs through short straws, just like the grown-ups.

Plus, we got double cherries, once we buddied up with the bartender and he realized how sophisticated we were.

I must say that, in hindsight, the wedding was pretty good after all, and the cake terrific!

-Hank

"Being a Kid," from The Saturday Morning Post, at hankfrazee.com