Walleye and sweet corn. Five Star and Pepsi on my father’s breath. That summer Lizzie and I waited tables at the breakfast and chicken joint while Emily, the preacher’s kid, worked the cafe down the street. Pastor Dan wasn’t out of the closet yet.
We walked booth to booth with hot coffee for the retired farmers shaking dice. My boss with the foggy glasses and the sweaty beard every Saturday morning asking, “What did you do with your boyfriend last night?” Wouldn’t he like to know. We cut frozen apple pie and scraped yellow yolks off thick white plates and worked the big wheel on the broaster filled with greasy breasts and thighs. Lizzie was puking up her breakfast in the bathroom.
Gina, with the body and the eyelashes, whose real dad lived across town and whose half siblings she saw each day in school (but did not acknowledge as family) was leaving for college in Duluth. “Meet me there in two years,” she said.
Metallica and Skid Row blared from the speakers of Robbie’s new Ford truck. His dad took the old green Pinto an hour away to a new job and a new woman near Sauk Centre—where the memory of Sinclair Lewis still haunted main street. Robbie, Jay and I drove the backroads sipping on whatever we could find. We looked for deer and chased gophers with our headlights across the prairie. Jay said, “pull over in Olson’s field.” We lay three across the hood watching fireflies and the northern lights dancing at the edges of heaven.
My father trailered bellowing cattle from the farms to the stockyards. He drove the long miles to St. Paul, then came home to trailer the boat—slaughtering the crappies and walleye. My mother always off to church for choir or ladies aid.
I stayed out late with Lizzie and Emily at the Bombers games. Cutlasses and Monte Carlos lined up under the bright lights. We sang White Snake—Here I go again on my own—through the corn fields and winding roads. We were the pioneer princesses of gravel road rock and roll. We were Laura Ingalls, but wilder.
We were always daring the sperm to stick. Erika was due in December, Dana had a miscarriage and Bridget got an abortion. Bethany just did anal. I was blow jobs and wine coolers only.
We worshipped pinned jeans, Aqua Net and big bangs, but we didn’t believe in evolution. We could stay out as late as we wanted Saturday as long as we were in church on Sunday. We were saved and we were forgiven—it didn’t really matter what we did.
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Amy Stonestrom is an MFA candidate in Bay Path University’s creative nonfiction program. She is also part of the year-long Writer’s Project intensive at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis where she is finishing her first memoir. Her essays are published or forthcoming in Superstition, Jenny, Storm Cellar, Wanderlust Journal and Montana Mouthful. Amy lives on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border with her husband, son, and springer spaniel.
Artwork by Dev Murphy
I remember those years, my own version. This is vividly different. Made me suck my breath.
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I adore this. It’s like a list poem of my own young-adulthood. Every single day was easy and normal but also dangerously capable of ruining my the rest of my life.
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Every day but Sunday right? Thanks Nicole.
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Yes! This is/was so many rural towns. Lovely details and made me want more.
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Captivating essay! Two thumbs up!!
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so vivid! brought the ’80s back and some of the worst/best dichotomies of being a teenage girl… well done!
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singing “Here I go again on my own”
Me too…?
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This piece explodes with sensory details transporting me there and then, taking risks, laying on the hood, watching fireflies. I hope the memoir comes out soon.
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This piece is rich in detail. I am there with you walking the gravel road with a gaggle of singing friends, Pepsi Cola in glass bottles in our hands. Or Tab, my 1980s favorite.
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Remarkable imagery in 444 words that capture a young girl’s view of a time and place—a slice of American apple pie, frozen.
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So evocative. A wonderful read.
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“We were Laura Ingalls, but wilder.” Love this line… as well as the whole piece. Beautifully written. I grew up in Minneapolis in the 50’s/60’s. My husband and I raised three children on a third-generation family farm outside a town of 30,000, from 1984 through 2006. I can only guess the similarities and differences of our experiential memories.
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“We were Laura Ingalls, but wilder.” Love this line… as well as the whole piece. Beautifully written. I grew up in Minneapolis in the 50’s/60’s. My husband and I raised three children on a third-generation family farm outside a town of 30,000 from 1984 through 2006. I can only guess the similarities and differences of our experiential memories.
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“Princess of road rock and roll. Laura Ingals, but wilder.”
OMG you are such a master of words! Love it!!!!
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Thanks Cherste 🙂
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I love this–and your writing overall, which is so fresh, vivid, poignant, and accurate!
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Thank you Madelon!
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There is so much in so few words. This author bears watching!
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Thank you Paul!
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The sparse language, grounding in time references, and vivid sensory detail tell a riveting personal story while leaving room for every reader’s memory of similar teen age experiences, whether in rural America or in the cities.
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Thank you Barbara!
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The details in this piece are at once familiar and surprising, unique and universal.
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“We were always daring the sperm to stick. Erika was due in December, Dana had a miscarriage and Bridget got an abortion. Bethany just did anal. I was blow jobs and wine coolers only.” Teenage girls and their sexuality–love this! No sentimentality here, no apologies. And the boss who wants to know what you did with your boyfriend and your take no prisoners rejoinder–“wouldn’t you like to know.” Love the voice, love the girls who won’t be cowed and how in so few words you bring the time and place to life.
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I was assigned to read this for my high school English class, and I was pleasantly surprised. I found myself relating to the story, even 30 years later. This story has stood the test of time.
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Thank you Liam, very exciting to see that my piece was assigned for your class. Glad you enjoyed.
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As a high school student, this story is relevant even after 30 years. Many of these experiences are shared by American teens regardless of their uprbringing, from drinking to sex to staying out late.
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Thank you Talia, I am honored that high school students today are relating to this piece.
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What an absolutely brilliant piece Amy, the things you wrote about really do describe high school, in my opinion, from the sex, to all of the drugs, that many high school students do.
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Thank you Geico. Love your comment. Makes me wonder what the ancient cavemen teenagers were up to. Was Homer a hellion? We know Joan of Arc was using her time wisely. But what about Genghis Khan?
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I found this story very interesting and relatable to myself even though it was written in 1989. I feel that this story will continue to apply to teens in the future.
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Thank you Ryan. I actually just wrote this last August but those teenage memories are the ones that cling the tightest to neocortex I think.
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I am a high school student and I feel like this story relates to most if not all teenagers. In this piece it highlights the fact that teenagers tend to feel invincible. Especially at the end where she says she can do whatever she wants at night and everything will be okay as long as they are in church the next morning.
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Can I get an Amen! Thanks Dan 🙂
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This is relatable across the board. As a high school student reading this in an english class filled with other teenagers it was amusing to see people reactions to the various descriptions of teen life. Some uncomfortable laughs, some assimilating smiles, and overall appreciation. And at the end of the piece it wraps up with returning the various teens to their innocence, allowing the whole cycle to begin again.
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Thank you Hannah for your thoughtful comments, I sure would have loved to be a fly on the wall in that room 🙂
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Ah, Sauk Centre on the St. Croix, eh? As a “Clumsy Heights” ’50’s kid whose step-parents banished him to a River Falls farm every summer, I can empathize. It didn’t improve when in my senior year we pulled up stakes to pitch a tent in MN’s answer to the Gobi Desert, Fridley. We tethered our camels just in time for the ’65 tornados that rolled up the neighbors’ newly sodded lawns like throw rugs and deposited them in our living room. Yet I almost miss the blood-sucking “state bird” flying in V formations of three, searchin for the next meal.
Almost.
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Wow, I recognized a few people, was I in there?
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Just in spirit 🙂
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You “nail it” classmate! Great read.
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Having grown up closer to “the big city,” my life was a bit different, and family circumstances different, but the language in this work makes me feel like I was there. My favorite line “My father trailered bellowing cattle from the farms to the stockyards.”
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