Here I am in 1968, the year that would define my life. To those of you reading this story, I must sound like a completely selfish jerk. I was, but you have to understand, I'd spent the greater part of my youth living for my family, or should I say at the whim of my family.

My brother always came first, the doctor, or as they put it back then, the child that would amount to something. As fate would have it however, I was the one taking care of Ma financially and I really didn't mind. I felt it was my job and even though she didn't appreciate what I did for her, it made me feel good to do it. Truth be told, I didn't begrudge my brother either. He always treated me well and he did work very hard to get where he was.

I always felt that my sister had it the best. She went as far from here as possible. That way she could have plausible deniability when it came to anything having to do with responsibility for the family.

With Tom, on the other hand, I would like to think that except for a few small indiscretions, I was good for him. Without me he wouldn't have had any fun in his life. I was there to push him when he was nervous about a girl, I helped him on his basketball game for an entire summer when he decided to try for our high school team, and he made it as a bench player. I was the starting point guard. Don't let it sound as if I was some sort of hotshot on the court, we had an awful team, but being a starter did have its privileges with the girls around school. They always loved an athlete in a letterman jacket. Those were the days when you could stab a best friend in the back and all it would mean is that he was pissed at you for maybe a week. On the other hand however, what I did to Tom with Julie was far worse. I worried constantly about what would happen to our friendship if he ever found about it. Believe it or not, I was even more worried about the consequences for Tom with Julie. I don't think he'd ever be able to look at her the same way.  That must mean that deep down I have a sense of morals, and a conscience. It was those morals and conscience I suppose that kept me on the straight path with both Tom and Betty, for a while.

Thinking back on that spring and summer makes me smile. I'll tell you one thing; it's amazing how much you can remember about the past when you take the time to write it down. What's even stranger are the small details that the mind chooses to recall, like the Orange Crush bottle cap I found on a beach that spring. That memory sure opened a floodgate of others.

I'll begin with Tom, who against my advice, apologized to Julie for that insane marriage proposal. At the time I felt that Tom should have just accepted the rejection and moved on. At least that way I could be certain that Tom would never find out what I had done with her that night. Instead, after hours and hours of talking, they decided that their friendship was too important for each other and vowed to pretend as if no proposal ever happened.

For the first time I was starting to believe that this wasn't Tom's fault after all. It seems that sweet Julie enjoyed having him dangle from a string. If Julie cared for him even a bit she would have had the common courtesy not to let him wallow in his hopeless misery. Tom was indeed stuck in that senseless trap. It even occurred to me that if the two of them kept this up long enough they actually could get married. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

My fondest memories of that amazing summer were of Betty, Billy and I at the beach and the hours we spent driving there and back. It felt like I was going on a family outing with my wife and son. I started to realize how much the thought of family life appealed to me.

"When can we stop for ice-cream?" Billy screamed from the back seat of the Thunderbird convertible. With the top down you needed to scream if you had any chance of being heard over the sound of wind hitting the car.

"There should be an ice-cream stand at the beach," Betty answered as she kept her hand firmly placed on my lap.

"Hey, Adam," he yelled again.

"What is it, Billy?"

"Will you look for fish with me in the ocean?"

"Of course I will. Just remember to keep the small ones away from me. They give me the creeps."

Betty smiled. She loved it that Billy and I got along so well. It was easy. He was a great kid. It was obvious to me that Billy was beginning to see me as a father figure. It just goes to show how much I'd grown up since I met Betty. The thought of marrying her didn't really scare me as much as I thought it would.

The drive to the beach was nice. The top was down; the wind was blowing through us. The cares of the world were left behind and Donavan was playing on the radio, so I turned it up. Sunshine, Superman. Music is one of those things that bring back my memories clearer than anything else. It's as if the mind stacks music and memories together in the same file folder.

"Can you please turn that racket down," Betty asked.

"But it's Donavan!"

"Exactly," she replied. "And isn't that the beach over there?"

Betty and I loved this beach because it was one of the only beaches where you could drive your car right up to the sand as opposed to parking in some oversized lot and then dragging all your stuff for half a mile just to realize that you forgot your transistor radio back at the car. Our parking spot was always at the far end of the beach which was usually the quietest. Today however, the entire beach was practically empty.

"Let's go get ice-cream," Billy said as we pulled up to the wooden fence that separated the cars from the sand.

"I'll be right back," I told him. "Stay here with your mom."

I hopped out of the car and headed for the snack shack at the other end. As I got closer I began to fear that the shack might actually be closed. It was. A sign read, closed. A young lady dressed in a skimpy bikini called out to me from behind. "There won't be anyone working here today," she said.

"Why not?" I asked as I looked around to see if there were other people on the beach. There wasn't a soul.

"Haven't you heard, Bobby's been shot."

"Bobby?"

"You know," she replied, "that guy running for President."

"Bobby Kennedy?" I asked.

"That's the one. They say he's probably not going to make it."

I was not into politics. I preferred to live my life in complete ignorance and leave the worrying to everybody else, but even I knew who Bobby Kennedy was. Everybody I knew, including Ma, loved the man, even though he was Catholic. He was going to be the President that ended the war and brought home the troops. I couldn't tell you who he was running against in the Democratic primaries because outside the most popular issues of the day I was clueless. Back then if an issue didn't concern me directly I didn't care about it unlike today where people tell me that I spend far too much time focused on politics.

Time has taught me one thing; our way of life is precious and if we expect to keep it we have to get involved, but at the time watching how everybody was focused on the news, be it the upcoming Presidential elections or that war we were messed up in on the other side of the planet, I preferred to simply live and enjoy.

"Do they know who the shooter is?" I asked.

"Beats me," she replied. "If I cared do you think I'd be here?" She wiggled her hips a bit then motioned me towards the ocean. She was definitely one of those hippy sorts who didn't have a care in the world, but she was also a babe. "Let's go for a dip," she said as she grabbed my hand.

I turned back towards the car and saw Betty bopping in the back seat with Billy to some music. For the first time in my life, I think, I decided to take the high moral road. "I can't," I told her as I pulled my hand from her tight grip.

"Too bad," she replied as she flightily danced away, wiggling her cute behind until she disappeared into the water.

Too bad for me as well, I thought as I headed back for the car, without any ice-cream. While I was walking through the sand my feet jabbed into a sharp object. I bent down and picked it up. It was an Orange Crush bottle cap. I still don't know what made me pick it up. Maybe it was because I didn't want someone else to step on it. It might have been that I knew it Betty's favorite soda. I really can't tell you for sure, but what I can say is that it effected me in ways that went far beyond the norm.  Who could have imagined that a simple bottle cap could have such a profound effect on someone.

"You don't have any food," Betty said to me as I approached the car.

"I'm sorry, they're closed."

"How can they be closed?" she asked.

"They own the place so I suppose they can do whatever they want." I didn't want to tell Betty why they were closed otherwise she would have insisted on heading home to be with her parents. Her family were big financial supporters of Robert Kennedy.

"So that means no ice-cream," Betty told Billy who didn't seem too disappointed.

"That's alright. Let's go get those fish!" Billy grabbed a small net, hopped out of the car and raced down the beach into the water.

"Take off your t-shirt!" Betty yelled from the car. "We didn't bring another one!"

"I'm going with him," I said to her, "Do you want to come too?  He's so excited."

"It's good for him to spend some time alone with you. I'll just watch from here."

The water was a bit cool for my liking but it didn't bother Billy as he raced along the shallow waters of the beach to try and catch as many minnows as possible. He looked so happy running around with his net. I didn't have the heart to tell him that there were no minnows here. They were fresh water fish found in lakes, not in the salty waters of the Pacific.

"Don't take more than you can eat," I said to him.

"I have to eat them?" Billy's winced with nervousness.

"Of course you do. It's the law you know."

Billy saw the sly look on my face and started to laugh. Betty sat up in the car and watched. Every now and then I would catch a glimpse of bikini girl waltzing through the water. I just hoped that she would stay away from me. If I had always been an upstanding guy I probably wouldn't have been so worried about her but honesty was fairly new to me. I never had much practice in defending myself when I had done nothing wrong.

Betty stood up in the car and yelled out to us. "Hey Billy, save some fish for Mommy. I'm hungry too."

"I will, once I catch some!"

Betty turned up the music full blast then ran down to the beach. It was nice having the whole beach to ourselves; and Bikini Girl.

The drive back was also a blast. Every time I turned to Betty I would get a view of her in the setting California sun while Billy slept in the back. I would quickly glance over at her and then turn my head away before she could catch me looking, that is, until I turned towards her only to find a large pair of bulging eyes staring right back at me that playfully said I caught you. I couldn't resist the temptation any longer so I pulled the car over to the side of the road and kissed her. The radio played Happy Together by the Turtles which was our song or at least one of them and then the DJ played Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. We kissed like never before. I could feel my heart beating in a way I had only heard about in the movies. It was awesome. And then the moment was over.

"Mommy, does this mean that you are going to marry Adam?"

"Hey kid," I said smoothly to Billy as I turned and brushed the top of his moppy hair with my hand, "you were supposed to be asleep."

"Are you going to marry Mommy? It would sure be neat having you as my Dad." Billy's face was incredibly innocent and sincere. I loved him. I looked at Betty, at her bright smile, and the warmth that she exuded. Once again my decision was made.

I got out of the car, walked around the front to Betty's side and opened her door. I bent down on one knee and placed the Orange Crush bottle cap in her hand.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"It's all I've got with me," I replied with a nervous smile.

"Adam's asking you to marry him," Billy screamed from the back seat.

"Hey kid," I said to him, "don't ask her for me, that's my job."

Betty started to cry as she tightly squeezed the bottle cap.

"What's wrong," I asked her?

She held her hand firmly closed for what seemed like an eternity and then finally unclenched her hand. "This really hurts," she said with a smile as we both laughed at the crown marks that the bottle cap left embedded in her hand.

"Can I have that?" Billy asked.

Betty turned back to Billy and gave him a huge hug. "I'm going to keep this for a while," she said to him.

"Betty," I asked, "Is that a yes?"

"A yes to what? I don't believe you've asked me anything."

She was right. It appears that Billy had spoiled my spontaneity, but what the heck, I couldn't stop now. 

"From the first time I stole your seat at the Starlight club, I knew that you were going to change me forever. You have. I love you Betty Ashford. If you accept this proposal I promise to love and cherish you until the day I die, "I looked back at Billy, "and you too."  Betty cried from what I hoped was happiness as I said "Betty Ashford, will you take a chance and marry me. Oh, and I promise to get you a proper ring."

"I accept." She leaned over me and fell out of the car as Billy cheered with exuberance.