"Jill" and My Wish Book "Affair"

Writing touchy topics has never been my forte. Not that I would want to or care. What I do want to share and care about is how us guys, the vast majority, I might add, all get so curious about the opposite sex when we reach 12. Not that 12 is Nature’s Magic Number—it’s just Puberty’s Gate slowly opening just to see us males stumble and bumble through the entrance to just see what the big attraction is about girls.

I can look back right now and remember the very first time that I walked by my mom when she was enjoying the Sears-Roebuck Catalog that was once mailed to each mailbox and on each mail route in the country. My mom loved that book. It was as exciting as Christmas Day suddenly appearing. But sometimes a bit more costly. People of my generation began calling the catalougue their “Wish Book,” and I quickly learned why. When mom would let me look at the “Wish Book,” she didn’t know that in fact, she was handling a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse. Guys at age 12 should never gaze within the pages of any catalog. It’s more than a Rite of Passage. It’s tossing down those kid-like scales that were attached to our eyes during birth, and once we zeroed in on some lovely girl, our eyes grew wide and our throats grew as dry as the Sahara.

My mom would softly laugh as I would look at the camping equipment, personally-endorsed by Sir Edmund Hilary, the first man to climb Mt. Everest, the air rifles, footballs and the watches. I loved the watches. And with each page that I turned, I would say, “I wish that I had this . . .” or “I wish that I had that . . .” and you mothers who might be reading this narrative all know that we guys were simply performing two things: one, hoping our mom would buy us one of the sleek snow sleds or something similar and two, hoping that our mom would have to leave the room to check her pot roast and then we could go wild looking at the pretty girls adorned in seductive poses and wearing all sorts of nice-looking lingerie—and we were then frozen in that one solitary hope that our mom would receive a phone call from her best friend, “Madge,” who lived next door and lived to waste my mom’s time.

I didn’t care. I easily grew engrossed with the various models with shiny blond, brunette and red hair and each one, to my imagination, had a story to tell. Truth? I went as far during one Sears-Roebuck viewing that I feel hopelessly in love with a blond wearing a thin night-gown and I named her, “Jill,” for she looked like a “Jill,” with those red lips so puffy and full. I made a vow to myself that no one, not even my mom, would ever know about us and “Jill.”

Spending time with my “Wish Book” girlfriend, “Jill,” was for me, more exciting than finding a crisp one dollar bill someone had accidentally dropped and never found it. More exciting than my parents telling me one day out of the blue that they wanted to be alone, just the two of them, and let me stay at our home alone (no Macaulay Culkin cracks, please), all by myself where I could go to my Secret World where “Jill” lived and look at her features until my heart was content. Actually, my heart was never content with looking at “Jill.” She was, in ever way, my ideal girl. Never judged me for doing something completely stupid as all 12-year-old’s do or even pointing her pretty finger at me when I talked back to an adult. I loved “Jill,” and she loved me. That was plain as plain can be.

And by now, the males reading this narrative are so “all in,” about my Puberty Exploration that this next point will get you good. If you were into enjoying the view of the Lingerie Models, then if your mom or dad happened to walk into the room, you had perfected this move so smoothly that you could count to the number of pages of Lingerie Models and pinch them together while you quickly opened up the chopping axes, lawnmowers and farming tools. Any unsuspecting parent might glimpse over your shoulder as they left the room and thought to themselves, I have the most-ideal child. He never looks at scantily-clad models in the “Wish Book.” I am so proud of him.

Now comes the touchy, sensitive area of me enjoying the view with “Jill,”and her gorgeous “Wish Book” model friends. And there came (that) time that came to all of us males when looking was not fulfilling enough. Oh, looking at first was great. A-OK. Perfectly content. And I choose my words carefully now . . .my body began to branch out on its own ignoring the non-condemning feeling of “just” looking at the Lingerie Models.

That part, I am leaving to the more-achieved writers for I do not want to get into any hot water dealing with a lot of pesky flags and spammy elements. I do have morals. I just cannot bring myself to put into words how I dealt with the Final Element of Puberty at age 12.

I do confess that in my beginning years of HubPages, I did publish a hub about one of my favorite uncles, “Dow,” an Army vet of WW I, and how I used to love to sneak into his back room (as he called it) and sneak looks at his vast collection of girly books. They were awesome. The girls in his books looked a lot like “Jill,” and her good friends that I found in mom’s “Wish Book.”

Then after a certain period of time and that time that I found fulfillment with my Puberty Safari, this got to be old. Pretty much bored out of my skull. I was suddenly depressed at not finding (that) old thrill of looking at “Jill,” in her Spring Look wearing her one-piece bathing suit. I remember just glancing at her and then running out to talk to some of my buddies.

And now in these latter days of my life, I still wonder if “Jill” ever got over me just glancing at her?