Summary

The essay “The Boys of My Youth” begins with two early-adolescent anecdotes that Jo shares with a childhood friend, Elizabeth. Jo and Elizabeth would spend time, bored, in Elizabeth’s room, watching their cute neighbor Dave Anderson play basketball in his driveway. The girls would call the Anderson’s house and excitedly watch as Dave’s mother would go outside and call Dave in for the telephone — but they would hang up without saying anything, too intimidated by Dave to actually talk. In the second anecdote, Jo and Elizabeth are made fun of by their gossipy French teacher in school. The narration then reveals that Jo and Elizabeth, despite being adults who live in separate cities, are in a way continuing the same boy obsession: “We’re in our late thirties, childless, and were flung at the same time out...