Guns, Cars and Girls in rural Virginia 1960

The county was forested, abutting on the Potomac River, with muddy Machodoc Creek, catfish rich—in that part of Virginia, three-quarters of a mile wide is a creek—emptying into the river. At sixteen we sailed along winding wooded roads at night in ailing jalopies that remembered compression as an octogenarian remember the ardors of youth. We had guns, fishing poles, deer and, blessedly, almost no adult supervision. We parked endlessly in the deep woods with the nicest girls on this or any other planet, and…again…no supervision! Adults assumed we had sense enough not to kill ourselves. Rather to our surprise, we did have it.