LOVE STRUCK.

“Always stay in your own movie.” – Ken Kesey******

LOVE STRUCK (1956)

By the time I was eleven my mother decided to send me out of Chicago for seven weeks each summer, to a camp in Wisconsin called “Brigadoon.” That first year – 1955 – I found myself madly attracted to a ten-year-old girl named Susie McClellen. I could barely stand to look at her for fear that she might return my gaze (and then what would I do?). She was so beautiful (long sideburns just like Elvis!), so perfect, that even when I knew she was in the same general vicinity I got nervous.

In between horseback lessons, tennis lessons, boating and swimming, eating meals and watching the projected movies each Saturday night, I caught glimpses of Susie. Those tiny moments were the high point of my camp days. And how I envied her boyfriend of that year, a freckle-faced, red-haired kid who looked a lot like the young actor in Baby Ruth commercials I saw on TV. He was cuter than she was! Anyway, I knew she was totally out of my league. At some point, I heard she was from St. Louis, and suddenly that city took on a special cachet in my mind. Anyway, the Summer ’55 camp session finally ended and another school year began.

In May of 1956 my mother announced that I’d be headed to the Wisconsin camp again, so for a second year in a row I returned to Brigadoon. I wondered, of course, if Susie would be attending. Before I departed from the Chicago train station I got my hair chopped off, to conform with the imposed title of my cabin- mates, “The Crew Cuts.” And, once there, I couldn’t help watching for Susie. Suddenly there she was, taller, a year older, and more beautiful than I had remembered. I didn’t notice her red-haired boyfriend anywhere around, but that didn’t really figure into the equation. She was still completely unapproachable in my mind.

One Saturday night, about mid-point into the seven weeks, you could say I got the biggest shock of my young life. While I sat alone on a folding chair watching the movie of the week, the 16MM print projected noisily onto a small movie screen (the camp’s living room/parlor of the log lodge served as the theatre), my new friend Paul approached me, stooping over with his hand cupped against his cheek. He whispered in my ear that a certain girl wanted to sit with me. I looked at him quizzically, and he quietly elaborated. He said that the girl really liked me and she was, at that very moment, waiting outside on the porch, ready to meet me and talk. Although shy, I hesitantly agreed, and quietly left the screening. I couldn’t imagine who it might be.

Exiting the lodge into the hot and humid summer night, I followed Paul as he rounded the corner. Oh my God! To my total astonishment and disbelief, it was Susie, standing there alongside Paul’s girlfriend. I couldn’t believe my eyes (can’t imagine how my emotions must have played out on my face). But she looked at me affectionately with her clear blue eyes and some of the tension melted away.

We sat close together that night at the rear of the lodge, on the back stairs leading to the second floor, even held hands a little, and I guess we became an “item” for the (too short) remainder of time at camp.

About a week before we were all shipped back to our respective homes, she and I agreed to meet clandestinely, unchaperoned, in the middle of the night. How I ever stayed awake until 2 AM I’ll never know , but I managed somehow . When my wristwatch said 1:55 I quietly got out of bed and carefully slipped on my shoes, all the while peering at the faces of my five other cabin-mates and counselor to determine their level of slumber. Then I slowly let myself out the screen door and crept away, out into a night gorgeously illuminated by a full moon.

As previously arranged, I found Susie at a wide- trunked tree, located about 100 feet from the glistening Lake where I’d spent many happy weeks fishing for Northern Pike. We sat snuggled together in the chill night air for maybe an hour, just mainly talking. I had my arm around her and, at some point, tried a quick kiss before we parted. That was it. I didn’t really know what else was possible in the romantic area. Maybe she knew a lot more than I (don’t most girls?). Paul had been talking about “getting to second base” with his camp counselor girlfriend, a well-endowed girl of 13 or 14, but I had no real interest in risking that. Puberty hadn’t really hit fully for me, so I didn’t have that urge yet. I was still a pretty pure youngster then.

After camp wrapped up, we out-of-state kids loaded a train for Chicago. Susie and I sat together for the train ride and I remember feeling sadder and sadder as the miles sped by. The closer we got to Chicago, the sooner my time with her would be ended. Finally, in the last ten miles, as we entered Chicago’s stockyards, I started building up my courage for a goodbye kiss. Our lips met briefly, about a half-mile before the station.

She remained on the train, bound for her home in Missouri. As the big engine pulled the cars away, I waved and watched her disappear. I remember walking with my parents toward the luggage rack in a sort of daze. Within ten minutes, my mother announced that we were moving to California for my father’s health. Suddenly I felt even more disoriented. Now it was certain that I would never see Susie again. And I didn’t.

We did write back and forth, though, her correspondence becoming a happy event at my new home in Santa Barbara, California. You can imagine how thrilled I was when a new letter arrived from Missouri, the envelope reeking of floral perfume, containing equally aromatic stationary , with her sweet words about “missing me.” We corresponded for about six months until the inevitable letter arrived. In it she said she had a new boyfriend. At that point I stopped writing, and no new letters arrived. I felt sad, knowing it was over, and played my record, “16 Candles” about a hundred times to get over it. At some point, I packed up the whole bunch of letters, secured them with a rubber band, and tucked them safely in the right rear corner of a small suitcase where I kept my archery badges, other special things.

I hadn’t really thought of Susie again until recently, when my movie-producing partner, Barry Norman. hired a cinematographer, Ron McLellen, in 2010, for my 25th feature, No Tears of Bankers. Ron’s last name was close enough to Susie’s to remind me of my first puppy love.

A question arises: Could Susie have been my first encounter with an actual soul mate? Maybe. I hadn’t really had “girls on the brain” until those first moments of being in her electric, “wanting me” presence. I’d hardly noticed girls at all up until then. In any case, I’d certainly been jerked out of my pre- puberty mindset by her pre-teen force field.

Excerpted from “TWELVE DEAD FROGS AND OTHER STORIES––A Filmmaker's Memoir,: by Rick Schmidt

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