Wonders Of The 7th Grade: Kisses And Creamed Corn

When he kissed me, Barry Reed tasted faintly of creamed corn. That was okay with me. It was my first kiss and I was crazy about creamed corn. Actually, I preferred corn on my lips to Barry, but when the bottle was spun it had pointed at me, and resisting social pressure was a concept I'd not yet mastered. Besides, I longed to discover what kissing a boy was like.

That first kiss was a real letdown, a hurried, eyes-scrunched, nose-crinkled smack. But then, it took practice to master the art of kissing -- not to mention its vocabulary. In the discovery I had to survive more than one awkward episode, like the time that "older man" -- a high school sophomore who'd been flirting in the movie line with me, a puppy-clumsy seventh-grader -- asked, with a wink, "Do you French?" meaning, of course, "Do you French kiss?"

To my everlasting mortification, the whole line heard me chirp, "No, I'm Portuguese!"

Learning the complexities of locking lips was only one of the breakthroughs of seventh grade. Fashion was another.

Starting in junior high, my apparel choices took on crisis proportions. My outfit had to be just the right style and color and length and fit. Whereas before, I would sleepily reach into the closet and grab whatever came to hand, at age 12 I began trying on half a dozen outfits each night in a quest for the perfect look.

Actually, what evoked my fixation on fashion was less seventh grade and more an attractive young man, two years my senior, whom I'd spotted at the neighborhood recreation center.