Aren’t You a Little Young for Me?

“You’re cute, honey, but you’re jailbait.”

I am in my fifties now and I still fondly remember a brief exchange between myself, a buddy, and a couple very attractive young women. My buddy and I were riding around on Pleasure Island (Carolina Beach, Hanby Beach, Kure Beach, and Wilmington Beach) where I lived most of my childhood. We were longtime friends and were then students at Cape Fear Technical Institute/Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, North Carolina. The tourist season was over and the beach community was relatively quiet and calm. Not much was going on that night.

As I recall, we were about to call it a night when a couple young women pulled up beside us in their vehicle, looked over, smiled, and then pulled away from us. They subsequently pulled into the shopping center where the Food Lion grocery store was located in Carolina Beach. Predictably, my buddy wanted me to follow them. I, on the other hand, was hesitant. I wasn't convinced that they wanted us to follow them, in spite of the smiles that they had given us.

Understand, I have always liked girls/women. I never really felt particularly uncomfortable being around them. But when it came to my confidence in the romance department, it was admittedly lacking. Well, at least until I knew that a young woman was interested. I wasn't certain that my friend wasn't misinterpreting what had happened.

Fortunately, my friend convinced me to turn around and go back to where the young women had entered the shopping center parking lot. We got there and they indeed were waiting for us. I pulled up alongside the passenger side of their car and we proceeded to chat. It was going pretty well. Then the young women proposed that we should go to a club in Wilmington and go dancing. Never mind that I have never been someone that enjoys dancing and goes out to go dancing. I was up for going out with these young women.

But there was a problem. We were not twenty-one yet and there were few clubs and bars that we could legally enter. I knew that we could get into The Mad Monk. It was a bar and concert venue. I had been there a number of times to see Sidewinder, a favorite rock band that used to play there and at venues up and down the East Coast. But it wasn't really a dance club. I basically acknowledged that we couldn't get into a lot of bars and clubs. It was at that point that the really attractive driver of the other car laughed and indicated that we were too young with the statement to me quoted at the beginning of this post.

My buddy unsuccessfully tried to impress upon them that we might be too young to legally drink alcoholic beverages, but not other things. The young women were very sweet, but it became clear that they were not buying what we were selling. Then the driver of the other car got out, walked around her car to my driver's side window, and inquired as to when was my birthday. I told her my birthday. It was then that she bent down, leaned inside the car, and kissed me. She then removed herself from the car, straightened up, smiled, and said "Happy birthday."

Shortly thereafter, the young women went on their way and left me and my friend to discuss the encounter and our bad luck for being born a little too late. It was a nice kiss. I honestly wouldn't have minded kissing her again and again. But it wasn't meant to be.

This "blast from the past" memory came to me while I was driving a tractor-trailer this past week. It brought a smile to my face and reminded this "old man" that he was once considered too young. 😁