LOTS OF PRETTY WOMEN, OR DIVINE INTERVENTION

Carol had long straight hair, sparkling blue eyes, and freckles that lightly dusted the bridge of her nose.  I met her when my best friend, David, and I were both counselors at his church during the summer religious experience known as “Vacation Bible School.”  Little kids would sign up to be in Bible class for a few hours a day and then, during breaks, would leave the classroom, have a little snack of crackers and cheese or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,  and then run off to play on the playground in activities organized by the recreation committee.  Since it sounded like fun, took place outside, and didn’t involve any kind of learning, David and I signed up to work the recreation committee.  

And that’s where I met Carol.

Almost from the start, we flirted, worked as close to each other as we possibly could, and spent private time after VBS talking about our schools, our lives, and our personal dreams for the future.  We were fourteen.  On some days (special days I remember even thirty years later), the group of kids would get together after the half-day of working with children, and participate in their own activities—bowling,  movies, miniature golf.  Once--in a true show of God’s will and divine intervention—the recreation committee had a pool party at Carol’s house.  

It was heaven.

That summer, Stephen Bishop’s hit “On and On” was a major hit and flooded the airwaves.  Even now, when I hear his lilting vocals and the opening line “Down in Jamaica/They got lots of pretty women,” I think of Carol. It was never so much that the lyrics reminded me of her specifically, but that the relaxed tone and pretty melody also takes me back to that lawn in the front of the church where we ministered to the Youth of America—and each other.  

That Stephen Bishop was also from San Diego and the line original spoke of “La Jolla,” instead of “Jamaica,” made it all the more relevant to who and where we were. It is still hard to remember that summer, or Carol’s little bikini as it undulated above and below the water line of her backyard pool, without thinking of that song.