The Loss of Innocence

In Kristen Allen-Benson’s junior year English class (my most favorite high school teacher) she would always talk about the theme of the “loss of innocence” that presents itself in literature. The idea that at some point in everyone’s lives they realize they aren’t a kid anymore and start seeing the world through more realistic, adult eyes. It is a beautiful, bittersweet theme that has followed me all these years. The other day my designers at work had Counting Crows, August and Everything After playing in the their room and hearing it from far away like that brought back all the nostalgic feelings of the summer of 1994. The summer I can point to as my “loss of innocence”.

It was the summer of my life. The kind of summer you think back on and you almost taste what it felt like to be a teenager. The kind of summer that fuels songs like the Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams. A summer you would see on The Wonder Years with narration, Kevin Arnold & Winnie Cooper. I think you get it. But it was my 8th grade summer - AD Vina was my first “real” boyfriend, went to Churchill (which was way cool to be dating a kid from the “other” junior high) and treated me like gold despite his rebellious, bad-boy reputation. It was the birth of a life-long beautiful friendship with Brianne Marie White Jones Wisan since she was dating Jake Rieser who was a Wasatch jr. boy (also very cool being that she was a Churchill girl). AD and Jake were friends so we were forced to hang out by default. We played so hard that summer. There was about 10 of us that were together almost everyday. AD’s parents were traveling the whole summer so we basically had the whole house (including a big screen tv, a pool, slot machines and a pool table) to ourselves – a group of junior high kids dream come true.

Multiple times during that summer Brianne and I would sneak out of her bedroom window, sleep at AD’s, wake up at 6:30 am, walk back to her house before Phyllis, her mom, woke up for work. We thought we were brilliant for getting away with it. We were.

The soundtrack of that summer was the August & Everything After album and though their music since doesn't quite have the brilliance of that album (I’ll try and forgive them for Accidentally in Love), and though, minus a few, I don’t know where most of those friends are now, that album will always make me a feel a love for all those kids that shaped that summer for me.

Heres to being a teenager and losing your innocence....

Jake Rieser, Brianne Jones, AD Vina, Emily Carlquist, John Dowdle, Allison Sullivan, Frank Granato, Abbie Kannibi & Sam Lewis