In 1961 I saw the movie, "Splendor in the Grass," starring Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty. The movie was about young love drunk with lust and the dilemma of "good girls" and boys who love them. The movie would seem smalzy today and kids would probably groan as loudly over the scenes as they do when they see "Marijuana Madness." But the emotional quagmire and rigid rules of the 1950s were just as repressing and downright insane in Huntsville, Texas, in 1961, as they were being depicted on screen.

After the movie, my friend Gary B. Ashe and I were sitting in the grass in front of Old Main at Sam Houston State College, overlooking our hometown. Gary B. was in his senior year, and I was a sophomore, and we were talking about the Wordsworth poem recited in the movie and its meaning to us. (I think that movie probably had as much impact on teenagers and their appreciation of poetry as Harry Potter has had with children and their renewed appreciation of fiction.)

Gary B. was reminiscing his four years in high school and their coming to an end, and how things would never be the same. He talked about the separate but equally strong feelings of truiumph and loss that were overwhelming him as he neared graduation. I, of course, was just getting into the groove of my high school adolescence, so in truth, I really had no idea what he was trying to explain, but I listened, caught up in the sweet melancholy of his voice, and his maleness and mystery.

He gave me his senior picture that night and he wrote on the back:
"Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower
We will grieve not, but rather find
Strength in what remains behind."
Gary B. Ashe
Senior 1960-61

Forty-five years later I think about how genuinely serious we were, talking quietly, trying to grasp the meaning of our lives. What remains is the incredible strength of a shared youth and lifelong friendship.

Writing prompt: Think about your youth and write about the strength you found that brought you through adolescence.