When Dreams Were Yet Young

Do the times alter actions or do actions alter the times? Case in point, this excerpt from When Dreams Were Yet Young.

Memorial Day weekend, 1964, was both a bane and a blessing. It had been nearly a century since mourning of such depth had swept America, since the promise of so bright a future had been ruthlessly torn from the fingertips of the masses. But though the wounds were yet to fully heal and the weekend was to hold countless ceremonies to honor fallen soldiers as well as the slain president, a need was rising, a desire for something, anything to take the place of the morbidity that had slumped so many shoulders and pained so many hearts. The skies were to be sunny, the temperature warm. It was time to embrace the unofficial beginning of summer, for adults to draw a sense of renewal from the omnipresent joy of their children. A smile. A laugh. The warmth of friendship. A simple daydream. Time to move on.

From this point, a story of young love unfolds between Scotty Trent and Jillian Hanschumacker, he energetic and starry-eyed, she delicate, affected. Each of them has a mentor. For Scotty, it's Druid Simms, an enigmatic nomad who dwells in the wilderness near the Trent's lakeside summer home. For Jillian, it's her father, Fritz, whose overprotectiveness stunts his only daughter's emotional growth. Three years later, during a stolen rendezvous at the lake's sole island, we see the external strain upon their internal desires, in part through this discourse.

"You're sixteen and I'm not quite there yet, Scotty, and even though there's something very mature and -- I think, I hope -- permanent between us, our parents make the rules that bind us to whatever it is that society expects."

"Society expects?" Scotty repeated, stretching his arms and grasping at thin air. He found a brave smile tucked someplace between desire and defeat and allowed his frustration to force it to the surface. "Society is nuthin' more than the strainer you drain your spaghetti in! Metal full of holes. A hard surface with sweaty skin. Reason that doesn't hold water! Sure, it can expect all that it wants --" he saw the unrest in Jillian's wandering eyes and calmed his tone, "but it can't control us, not really, not unless you buy into empty tales of failed perfection." He stepped back to the boat, lifting the cover on its storage compartment and grabbing the thick blue blanket and the transistor radio he kept there. "I mean, look at the world our parents grew up in," he noted, moving to spread the coverlet on the damp green ground. He lifted the radio's antenna and began fiddling with the station knob, having been listening to the Red Sox game while fishing the night before. "The Great Depression? There goes your worship of the almighty dollar. World War Two? If World War One was 'the war to end all wars' then why the hell didn't they learn their lesson?" He hit on WRKO from Boston. The Young Rascals' "Groovin'" shivered through the air. "Can't you see it, Jillian? It's all a big joke! The emperor has no clothes! They rule our lives out of our respect for them and nothing else. And they've only earned that respect from us being so frickin' naive. Well, we're not toddlers anymore! We've lived and learned, fallen and gotten back on our feet, seen them fall themselves without a clue as to why. Yeah, respect is earned, but you gotta maintain that impression of -- of composure to keep it intact."

Do the times alter actions or do actions alter the times? When Dreams Were Yet Young might just provide an answer to that age-old question.