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Governelli at quarterback. Babe Dimancheff was the main runner. Rocco Canale played guard and there was a kick returner named Sonny Karnofsky. The team was owned by Ted Collins, who everybody knew was Kate Smith’s manager. The Boston Yanks played in Fenway Park sometimes, and were never very good…I felt that studying the sports page was more or less a responsibility; the funnies were pure entertainment. There was Alley Oop and his girlfriend Oola, with their pet dinosaur Dinny…There was L’il Abner, and Blondie, and Ella Cinders and Terry & The Pirates, and Red Ryder…Comic books were a longer form, more complex. I especially liked Batman and Robin, and Captain America and Bucky, and of course the print ads for Chesterfield cigarettes and Seagram’s whiskey and the delicious meals you could make with canned ham and peaches…Another step up the intellectual ladder was LIFE Magazine, which came out once a week. It had wonderful pictures of everything that Americans cared about, and some great text and photo features on things like “Married Vets Return to College,” and “LIFE Goes to a Sorority Party.” There were always a few pictures of nice-looking girls changing clothes…There were whole series of writing and pictures on things like the renaissance…And “Life Goes to the Movies,” which was a sort of capsule presentation of current movies with still photos from the movies, a magazine version of the Lux Hollywood Theater. LIFE always made me proud to be American.

CHAPTER 13
    IT was a bright Saturday afternoon and no one was around. I walked down to the harbor and looked at the bandstand. It was empty. I went on down the hill past it and out to the end of the longest wharf, and sat on the stone surface and looked at the water.
    Nick and I were a little ill at ease these days. Neither one of us said anything, but I figured it must have something to do with Joanie. I know it did for me. And I knew Russell was kind of PO’d because he thought the Owls were his team, and he didn’t like me doing all the coaching. I didn’t like it either, but there wasn’t anyone else to do it, and we had to do something if we were going to get anywhere in the state tournament. Part of me doubted that we would. It was the part that was sort of separate from the rest of me, that knew the stuff that I didn’t want to know.
    That part knew why I had come down here past the bandstand.
    Looking straight down into the greenish water, I could see small fish moving about the base of the dock. Much too small to catch. It was too late in the year to fish, anyway. I wondered if people didn’t fish after Labor Day because the fish went somewhere, or if it was just because people thought it was too cold to sit out there with a line. Or maybe that was just the way it was done. The grown-up world was filled with stuff that you did because that’s the way it was done.
    The sun was behind me and to my right as I sat looking at the water. I saw her shadow before I saw her.
    “Can I sit and stare at the water too?” Joanie said.
    “It’s not my water,” I said.
    She sat beside me. Her hair was shiny and smelled nice, like she’d just washed it.
    “Nick says he thinks you’re mad about him going to the Boat Club party with me.”
    “I’m not mad,” I said. “He’s your boyfriend.”
    “No,” Joanie said. “He’s not.”
    Something jumped inside me.
    “He says he is.”
    “I can’t help that,” Joanie said. “But I am not his girlfriend.”
    “So why did you invite him to the party?”
    “He’s cute, and he’s kind of nice,” she answered. “He isn’t grabby or anything.”
    I nodded. Two gulls landed near us and looked at us. In the summer, when we fished, we’d throw them a piece of bait, or maybe a small fish.
    “But I’m not his girlfriend,” Joanie said.
    I nodded again.
    “So why are you mad?”
    “I told you,” I said, “I’m not mad.”
    “We promised never to be mad at each other,” Joanie