Having been raised in the country entertainment was at a premium.  As kids we made our own fun.  In the summer there was bike riding, skateboarding, horseback riding, hide and go seek, fishing, swimming in the lakes and ponds.  We spent all day outside bait for the mosquitoes and flies.  In the winter we played a dangerous game in the hay loft.
My older brothers had rigged a rope to the beams of the barn's hayloft.  They would jump from the piled hay to the rope and then swing back and forth gaining momentum with each pass until they let go and dropped 40 feet to the soft loose hay on the floor of the mow.   It was a big kid's game because it involved skills a younger child hadn't yet mastered.  The spatial ability to jump, the manual dexterity to catch the rope and the ability to time letting go so they didn't hit the two cross beams running the width of the barn.  The big kids were good at it.  My one brother could let go of the rope and do a somersault as he fell.
What terrified me the most was the letting go.  The rope meant security and I would hold on until my fingers and knuckles turned white.  The boys would jeer and cluck like the hens in their coop at me for being a chicken.  They would become annoyed because they wanted their turn.  I would climb down humiliated and have to stand there while they took turns punching me in the upper arm for my cowardice.  I never cried but the sting of their disapproval hurt more than their words or their punches.
In the morning after doing my chores and before the bus came I would practice in the loft.  I climbed into the mow and up the piled hay.  I jumped for the rope, would swing back and forth and try to let go.  The first few mornings I couldn't leave the security of that thick rope.  I was determined though and I continued to try.  Finally I could do it.  I could jump and catch the rope and swing back and forth and let go.  The exhilaration of free falling that 40 feet was matched by my satisfaction in mastering my fear.
I have carried the determination I learned as a child into adolescence and adulthood.  I have learned that letting go of a sure thing and experiencing the unknown isn't something that need be feared.  The secret I have learned is to know when to let go and when to hang on. 

Coming Of Age

   They had come from the major cities along the east coast.  Manhattan. Boston. Philadelphia.  From as far south as Baltimore.  They had come to see what John Shuttleworth's Back To the Land Movement was all about.  It was the summer of 1972.

   They were mostly Jewish by birth.  Students or recent graduates.  Middle class kids who had been to Woodstock or Altamont.  Transients among a generation of seekers.  They were into Buddhism and Macrobiotics.  They were vegetarians. Anti-war.  Anti-drugs. Anti-establishment.
    The farm was a refuge but the cost of admission was dear.  They had to work for their keep.   Those who didn't were asked to leave.  I was a neighbor, my family lived across the paved road from the farm.  I had turned 16 in April.  To the surrounding farms they were just a bunch of unwashed hippies.  The locals used the malaprop "orgasmic" instead of the pejoratively meant "Organic".  I quickly became a fixture on their scene.
   They paired off quickly.  Love is never free.  There's always a price to pay.
   We worked from dawn to dusk.  The men wore blue jeans and the women wore the peasant skirts popular in those days.  Planting and cultivating in the hot sun both the men and the women stripped to the waist.  The women nursed the babies in the shade of a tree or a piece of machinery.  No bras for these women.  Their legs and underarms unshaven.  They wore their hair long tying it back to keep it out of their eyes and a kerchief to keep the dust out.  The men wore beards and long hair.  They were all honoring their peasant ancestors although no one realised it at the time.
   On Saturday evenings after having eaten and showered we gathered to party.  The music was homegrown.  Traditional fiddle tunes accompanied by guitars and percussion.  We drank cheap wine and danced by the light of a bonfire or the waxing moon.
   Elisa was 23 and finishing grad school at Syracuse.  She was a good head taller than I was.  In my eyes she was the most desirable woman on the farm.  She was a virgin as was I.  The crush I had for her drove my adolescent hormones into high gear.  I was clueless and upon reflection so was she.  Neither of us imagined the heartache that was to come.
Dancing together outside the waning embers of the once roaring fire I held her so she could feel my excitement.  I kissed her, both of our mouths closed.  She pushed me away and walked towards the house. I followed her into the house and up the stairs.  Neither of us said a word.  She opened her bedroom door and entered. I stood in the entrance.  She told me to close the door.  I didn't know if she meant for me to enter or to close the door.  I took the biggest chance of my young life in the seconds that followed.  I stepped through the doorway and closed the door behind me.  I reached for her in the darkness.  We fumbled there in the dark for the remainder of the night.  Neither of us got much sleep but we were well rested.
   At dawn she arose and gathered up some clothes and her towel and wash cloth.  The top sheet and quilt were drawn back.  There was a dark red spot on the sheet where she had lain.  I started to freak out.  I convinced myself that what we had done in the dark had hurt her.  I was scared.  I slipped on my jeans and the shirt from the night before.  

   At breakfast no one spoke to me.  No one looked at me.   They ate their oatmeal in silence until someone began to snicker.  Someone else made a crack.  My face became as red as the pickled beets on the table. My friend Bob rose from the bench and walked behind me stopping to slap me on the back.  The table cheered.  I sat there wondering if there was nothing sacred in this house.
   I followed Bob out of the house and down to the machinery shed.  I told him about the blood.  He laughed and explained it to me.  He told me not to worry about it.  He said he would have his woman talk to Elisa about birth control.
   In the weeks that followed, Elisa and I were inseparable. We couldn't keep our hands off one another.  I would catch and bridle the family's bay and ride across the road.  Elisa would stand on the second step of the side porch steps and struggle to get on the offside of the mare.  She had never ridden a horse before and held on to me so tightly I had trouble breathing.  I explained to  her how to hold on with her legs to the animal's flanks and balance herself by using my hips for support.  I could feel her breasts on my back.  We loped through the standing second cutting and the louder Elisa hollered the faster that mare would move until she was in full gallop.  We rode down to the pitch-off and the gorge.  I tied off the mare and we would climb down to the waterfall.  We made love under the flowing water and dried ourselves in the sun.
   Summer was quickly becoming Autumn.  I was to begin Grade 10 that year.  Elisa commuted to campus in her Saab for classes and her practicum.  On Saturdays we'd go up to Marshall Street.  She would go into the shops while I stayed outside and pouted.  We walked the street either hand-in-hand or our arms around one another.  The freaks would say about this odd couple things like, "That's cool, man."  We didn't care. We weren't hurting anyone.  We went into the bookstore and sat on the floor reading.  I liked Hesse, Vonnegut, and Richard Brautigan.  I read the "Village Voice" and "The Daily Worker".  I decided I was a Marxist.  Elisa read Camus and Sartre and taught me about Existentialism.
   Having had a steady diet of brown rice, seaweed, and fresh fruits and vegetables for months we both were feeling naughty.  She drove to McDonald's one afternoon.  We went in and ordered a Big Mac, a chocolate shake and fries.  We shared the takeaway in the car.   She was feeling guilty she said.  I suggested we bring back enough for everybody.  Elisa laughed and said let them get their own!  She had me dispose of the evidence less someone look in the car.  Halfway back to the farm she veered off the road and slammed on the brakes.  She flung open her door and began to vomit.  I tried not laugh but I couldn't hold it in.  Between volleys she told me I was cruel.  I got her a napkin and handed it to her to wipe her mouth and chin.  She didn't speak to me for the rest of the drive home.
   At Thanksgiving a Harvest Celebration was planned.  Elisa's mother drove up from the City.  Bob had pulled me aside and told me what Elisa couldn't.  He said that her mother was very protective of Elisa and if she found out what the two us had been doing she would take Elisa away.  Bob said I couldn't come to the Harvest Celebration.  He said he was sorry but it was only for a few days.  I was crushed.
At my family's holiday feast I was sullen.  I sulked through dinner pushing the food around on my plate.  I went out to do my chores and kicked the empty water pails around.  I threw the pads of hay for the horses at them not to them.  The dogs cowered.  I went for a walk across the fields.  I got as far away from the farm as I could.  When I was numb with cold I walked home and went to bed.  My mood did not brighten the next day.
   The following day Elisa called and said her mother had left.  She told me to come over.  I walked in the house and several of the folks were at the table.  I was asked to sit down.  Elisa and one of the women came in from the kitchen.  Elisa took my hand.  She did her best to cover up the fact she'd been crying but her swollen eyes and turned down mouth were a dead giveaway.  Bob stood by me.  Elisa started to cry and looked to Bob to find the words she couldn't.
   Bob began by saying everyone knew how much I cared for Elisa.  He said that everyone also knew how much she cared for me.  He said it had been a great summer and fall.  Everyone had a lot fun.  He said that since he had no family he considered the folks here his family.  He said he had grown very fond of me and considered me his brother.  The folks around the table were nodding in agreement.
   Bob said that in life things happen that are beyond our control.  That we have responsibilities to our families.  Bob said that Elisa's mother was very unhappy with what she had seen here at the farm.  She said that when Elisa finished school in December she would celebrate Chanukah at home and afterwards they would fly to Israel together.  She said they needed strong, well educated young women to teach in the Kibbutz system. She said that Israel needed fertile women and fresh blood for the next generation.  Bob's voice began to crack.  Bob said that Elisa's mother had been in contact with a young Israeli Army officer who was anxious to marry and have a family.  Elisa's mother had arranged for this man to marry Elisa.
   I looked at Elisa.  Her head was bowed.  There were silent tears streaming down her cheeks.  She mouthed how sorry she was.  I sat there shaking my head in disbelief.  Bob's woman moved from Elisa's side to behind me.  She touched my hair and pulled me to her bosom.  She rocked me back and forth stroking my hair.   My tears came silently, like Elisa's.  I reached for her and she put her head on my shoulder and sobbed.  I stroked her dark hair and told her it was gonna be okay.  I said it again.  It was in that moment when I put my needs and feelings aside to be her rock that I became a man.