It was at one of my birthday parties, and I either snapped the picture or asked my mother to - I'm pretty sure it was the latter, because I remember my mother being surprised: this was in the day and age when you invited all the neighborhood kids in, and this particular girl wasn't one of my close, close friends ...
I was trying to speak about something I didn't have the vocabulary for, I realize now ...
This girl was my age (which looks to be about four or five) with a brother who was a great deal older - like high school age older. And whenever she would bring her little friends around her house to play, he would hang around and make rude comments and just - stare. A guy in high school is doing this to little girls who are four and five years old. Today that would set off all types of alarm bells, but we are talking the late 60s, very early 70s. He pretty much ignored his sister - fixated on her friends. I don't know if he did this to all her friends, or to be honest even to her, but he did molest me. I was a vulnerable, wounded child, just bounding out of that experience in nursery school, so for all intents and purposes I had this 'recent victim' look on my face as he started his schtick about his shorts and his fancy-schmancy bicycle - and maybe he saw my face and decided to go further, or maybe he just did so with everyone - that I don't know. It surely would be interesting to re-connect with little girls in that neighborhood from that time period and ask ...
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