My Friend Caroline

 My friend Caroline has been on my mind lately. I met Caroline Creed when I was thirteen or fourteen, and we became fast friends. We LOVED boys and were on a mission to go to the movies, chase boys, go to the movies, and chase more boys.

Don’t get me wrong, boys did not flock to us, but that didn’t stop us from calling our favorite boys from the privacy of Caroline’s bedroom. Unlike my bedroom at home, Caroline had her own Princess Telephone. My hair usually curled better at her house, but I didn’t know why then. At my house, the humidity inside felt like it was about to rain. Blind as a bat and hating her glasses, Caroline would put her glasses on only when she needed to check something or someone out. We had a special place in each movie house in downtown Jacksonville where Caroline could see the screen without her glasses.

 I’m not sure what kind of vision problem she had, but it was bad enough to keep her from reading and seeing many things. Caroline was constantly elbowing my side to find out what she was missing. I remember telling her she looked great in specs, but she believed that “boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.”

Her blonde hair was thin and difficult to manage, like mine. The number one remedy for this was a big can of Rayette Aqua Net hairspray, which took care of most of our hair problems.

She wore her hair in a pageboy and spent quite a bit of time getting her hair just right. She loved “Stradivari,” a perfume by Prince Matchabelli. It was a relatively inexpensive perfume that usually came to her as a Christmas gift from her parents. Unfortunately, it was gone by March. She hooked me on this perfume I wore throughout high school when I could afford it. I found an old bottle of “Stradivari” in an antique shop and opened the bottle. That smell reminded me so much of Caroline.

Caroline lived only a few doors down the street from the city bus stop on San Jose Boulevard, a narrow two-lane road back then. It was easy for us to hit the road bright and early Saturday morning for our weekly trip to the movies and window shopping downtown. We had just enough babysitting money to do what we wanted to do. Downtown Jacksonville was a busy place, and to Caroline and me, it meant freedom. On our own, with no worry in the world, we could go anyplace we wanted. We stayed within a three- or four-block radius of James Weldon Johnson Park (Formerly Hemming Park), the central hub for city buses. To the north of the park was Cohen Brother’s Department Store, and to the west were Woolworth’s and J.C. Penney. On the park’s south side was a Morrison’s Cafeteria, and to the east was the famous LaRose Shoe Store, a Huddle House, and The Luggage Shop—a few other stores were tucked between these main attractions. Two blocks south were Levy’s, Furchgott’s, and Rosenblum’s, along with Abe Livert Records. Two blocks in the other direction were Purcell’s and Ivey’s. These stores were teenage girl friendly, and the sales clerks were always eager to rosy our cheeks with a touch of rouge or offer a sample spray of the latest Revlon perfume. Several of these women were friends of our mothers, so we frequented the stores as often as possible to say hello. We usually planned where to eat lunch or which 45rpm record we would look for at the record store on our bus ride into town. After completing our rounds, we would head for either the Center or the Florida Theatre.

These cinemas were the more excellent movie houses within walking distance of the park. Having pre-approval from our mothers regarding which movie we would see on our trip to town, we usually chose Westerns starring James Stewart or John Wayne. Caroline had crushes on both actors, but my vote was always for a James Garner, Doris Day, or Sandra Dee movie.

Because we depended on city bus schedules, often, we arrived at the theater after the movie began. In those days, showing up mid-movie and staying for the next showing to see the first half was not unusual. Seeing the big shoot-them-up ending first was not the ultimate cinema experience. Inside the dark movie theaters were neon-lit clocks visible for those wanting to take advantage of their bus. Go figure. The bus got there when bus got there. It had a schedule that was never ours. We most certainly avoided Main Street with its heavy traffic. On the way back to the bus stop, I would stop by The Federal Bakery to see if they had chocolate éclairs or maybe a cupcake that I could eat before at Hemming Park while waiting for our bus ride home. Caroline watched her waistline, unlike me.

 If the weather turned terrible or we missed the last bus, we would meet Caroline’s father at his office. Mr. Creed’s secretary, Miss Jackie, would escort us into the massive boardroom at Sverdrup & Parcel, where we relaxed our tired feet in big high-backed swiveling leather chairs. Miss Jackie would supply us with the latest fashion magazines she had stashed in her desk, a bottle of Coca-Cola, and a package of peanut butter crackers that held us over until Mr. Creed could give us a ride home. The board room smelled just like a cigar humidor. Back then, this was a good smell. Miss Jackie checked on us regularly to ensure we still had Coke and crackers. I remember her long red nails and her high-fashion look. I wanted to be her, no doubt about it. Sverdrup & Parcel was a civil engineering firm, primarily a bridge-building company with an impressive history. Some notable projects of Sverdrup & Parcel include the Sidney Lanier Bridge in Brunswick and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, one of the “Seven Engineering Wonders of the Modern World.” I won’t dwell on the 2007 collapse of the ill-fated I-35W Mississippi River Bridge in Minneapolis. It was a Sverdrup & Parcel bridge they would probably like to un-claim. One minute commuters were on the bridge, and the next minute they were underwater. What a mess.

Being Catholic, the Creed family did not eat meat on Friday but instead gave us kids a Chef BOY-AR-DEE Pizza kit and trusted me enough to make the pizza for them, which was something my mother hesitated to do. Mrs. Creed always fussed over my 8th-grade culinary skills, and since pizza delivery did not exist back then, I was the chef. I looked forward to those Friday nights with the Creed

  

family. After dinner, Mr. Creed would drive us down the street to the Seven-Eleven to buy ice cream for their family dog, Hansel, an overweight Dachshund. Hansel could lick the ice cream out of one of those waxed single-serve cups in thirty seconds without making a mess on the car’s back seat floorboard. Afterward, we would head back to the house so Caroline and I could lock ourselves in her bedroom to listen to her latest Beatles record.

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One of our favorite destinations after school and on Saturday nights was the campus of The Bolles School. At that time, Bolles was an all-boys, private boarding school. While at the school for any event, we were not allowed near our boyfriends’ living quarters. By boyfriends, I don’t mean real “boyfriends.” Most of our crushes were in one direction only (not ours). We worked hard at be

ing hard to get, so it was no wonder true romance eluded us. Both Caroline and I frequented every event possible that girls were allowed to attend. We went to football games, hootenannies, basketball games, swim meets, and the semi-formal dances that the school held to celebrate the seasons. The school sent formal invitations to each girl on the guest list. My mother would make a simple semi-formal dress for me for these dances, and my dad would drop us off at Bolles with a dime to call home when we were ready. I loved dancing then, and I was never ready to come home. The breeze from the St. Johns River behind the school was an excellent way to cool off after dancing. The school’s main lobby, which began as a hotel, reeked of Canoe and English Leather Cologne and Aftershave. Girls also wore these popular colognes.

One of the boys Caroline was sweet on was Alex Julian, who lived at the boarding school.

An underclassman and not particularly cute in the 9th grade, Alex was from Chapel Hill, NC, and had the best sense of humor. He would later become clothing designer Alexander Julian. The other now, but not then, the famous person we gawked at was an older Bolles boy, Gram Parsons, who was usually headlining a hootenanny in the basketball gym. Later in life, Parsons is credited with blending the sound of country music with rock. He was also good buds with Emmy Lou Harris and Keith Richards.

Parsons is now up there in Rock and Roll Heaven with Jimi, Janice, and Jim. Who knew? With his dreamy eyes and doing his best to have his hair as long as the school would allow, Parsons stood out in the crowd even then, as any kid who performed for the student body would. He knew what he wanted very early in his life. Just because I remember him so well does not mean I knew him by any stretch of the imagination.

He was several years older and didn’t go for goofy-looking 9th graders. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed the movies and tales about the weird heist of his corpse that his friends pulled off to get his body to the Joshua Tree National Monument at Parsons’ request. The movie “Grand Theft Parsons” tells his story and can be seen on the Independent Film Channel several times a year.

Caroline’s parents rarely gave the two of us a hard time about anything. The Creeds had the same strict rules that my parents had. Caroline would invite me to Sunday Mass with her and her family on Sunday morning. I always found this an uncomfortable place because of my unfamiliarity with Catholic protocol. Caroline would nudge me when it was time to kneel during the Mass. After church, I would head home to make a futile attempt at studying or doing the homework that I had forgotten about immediately after the bell rang for the last class on Friday. Caroline was a much better student than I was and would help with my homework. When it boiled down to it, we didn’t worry about studying. More importantly, we were concerned with only four things: Caroline’s hair, my hair, teenage boys, and of course, The Beatles.

I can’t remember when Caroline and I parted ways. She learned to drive a car years before I did. My parents refused to allow me to ride around in cars with anyone, even Caroline. My spare time in school was consumed with being in the high school band, trying to keep my head above water, memorizing music, and practicing the flute. I was devoted to being in the band.

On the other hand, Caroline needed a friend to pal around with who could ride with her to football games and do the things she enjoyed doing. I still spoke with her on the phone occasionally and saw her in the halls at school. Subsequently, Caroline and I both made new best friends. However, I never had another friend quite like Caroline for the rest of my high school career. At some point in high school, Caroline’s family left Jacksonville and moved to Louisiana. I only saw her once after that, and by that time, she was married. We had our last conversation on the phone in the mid-seventies.

I’ll never forget Caroline. She was one of those special friends in my life. I would have loved to know her as an adult. I think of her when I hear “She Loves You.” When I am at the taffic light in front of The Bolles School, I look up in the bleachers of their stadium and remember our uncomplicated lives. I can see us sitting together, taking in all of the night’s excitement, and standing on the sidewalk waiting for our dads to drive up, who always ask, “How’d it go, girls? “Was everything okay?” Having a close friend at that age was everything to me, and our parents gave us just enough freedom to explore relationships within the confines of a small formal living room, a school dance, or trips downtown to the movies.

In my mid-sixties, I began my search to find Caroline. After I Googled her name late one night, I found her listed in her mother’s obituary. I was lucky enough to correspond with Caroline’s son and her brother after all these years to get the answers I needed to say goodbye to her. Caroline died in 1992. She married two years after graduating high school and was an extraordinary wife and mother of three children. This is what Caroline had always planned to be. Having had heart problems since birth, Caroline had endured several surgeries. She is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. In 1992, I lost Nancy Sprague, Dennis Kirby, Carla Skinner, and Caroline, four of my best friends. I loved all of them so much.