It's hard to believe I was only nine years old. But I know it's true, because the fire was that same summer, and that summer I drove with my family from Pittsburgh to Seattle, and I saw the Seattle Word's Fair. We didn't go in 1962, the official year of the World's Fair, but the summer after. So it was definitely the summer of 1963, which meant I was a nine.
The summer of 1963 was also the beginning of the end of my age of innocence.
By November 22nd, President Kennedy would be assassinated, forever changing my perception of life's certainty. By June of the next year we would have moved to southern California, a long way from Pennsylvania, to a beach town with ocean views instead of trees, a world where innocence seemed to end earlier, a world where I spent fifth grade learning about four-square, pecking orders, and going steady, a world where I sat by the fence with a dictionary at recess as my brother and I searched for all the swear and cuss words our classmates used.
My age of innocence may have ended in southern California in 1964, but it was well on its way to being over in Pennsylvania. It was the summer of 1963 that I stole cigarettes from the A&P grocery store while shopping with my mother.
- James Seamarsh, rediscovering his innocence after all these years
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