Looking Out the Window is one of my first college compositions. I had recently been discharged from the service and I was working at Jerrold Electronics while attending Lasalle College at night. I was 23 years old when I wrote it. The theme of the composition was "Looking back". In it, I looked back at my pre-Army life at age 18. This piece was lost for a long time, and I didn't come across it until just recently. I made a few tiny edits from the handwritten original, but otherwise it's accurate. I apologize for its amateur style, but it was, after all, my very first college writing course. "Theme #10" is the actual blue book cover label. (God, how I remember the horror I felt when the professors handed out those blue books by surprise at the beginning of a class.)
LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW
It is Sunday afternoon and somehow it is one of those days that could be any day of my life. Looking out the window, I see myself sitting on the fender of my blue Corvette. Ron, Ed, and Arnie are standing around me. We’re getting ready to drive down to the shore. Or perhaps we’ll be going to the mountains, or the drag races, or the park. Wait…Now it is becoming clear. We are doing all those things today, because today is every day of my post-high school, pre-army youth.
It is a strange person I see outside. He is a ghost of the good old days, and yet he isn’t happy. In remembering, I thought people usually suppress the unhappiness and recall nothing but the pleasantries. Is something wrong with my memory functions, or are there no pleasantries to be remembered? I must have a closer look.
I’m looking out the window again…There was always something to do those days. The Corvette, which I really could not afford, was always able to thrill me when I drove it. The brute acceleration gave me a sense of power and contentment. Maybe it was the only thing that gave me any satisfaction at all. I don’t recall any particularly spectacular relationships at that time. I can only see Bonnie. I think of Bonnie quite often; even in the present. I was with Bonnie very often those days. Perhaps we saw one another off and on for five years. There was so much between us, and yet there was nothing. Maybe I wasn’t ready for her then. Am I now? I felt so much for her, and she for me, yet for all we put into it, all we reaped was misery and dissatisfaction.
Yes, there was always something to do those days. I made things to do. Perhaps I was madly seeking something or someone who could give me just one ounce of happiness. But these reflections puzzle me. Did I have to wait to turn 23 to understand what my life was like at 18? I must have led a life full of unhappiness without even knowing just how unhappy I was.
I’m looking out the window again…I see myself smiling now, even though the smile doesn’t reach inside. The car is pulling away, and this pleases me. Looking at myself was a painful ordeal. I wonder how it will be when I am looking back on 23. But why should I concern myself? Somehow it just doesn’t matter.
Steven Pein
Spring 1969
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